


One Hundred Lifetimes

by ideophobic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU everything tbh, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, I've even got a Jane-gets-adopted-and-it's-a-lil-sketchy AU in there somewhere, Yes there's dragons, how could you even ask me that, they get around okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:11:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 68,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6891553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideophobic/pseuds/ideophobic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of unrelated and some interconnected oneshots of varying ratings and lengths based off of prompts sent in by lovely readers. All Lokane. </p><p>Latest: Of Witches And Weeds II - A muggle road trip gone wrong, an infinity stone, and an unfortunate pureblood's parlour. Plot-heavy Harry Potter AU, you betcha. 8k.</p><p>(Cross-posted on FF.net)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Skinny Dipping

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Lokane, skinny dipping :)

"Get in, Jane."

"No."

"Jane."

"No, Loki."

Loki huffed out a frustrated breath and pushed away from the rocks he had been resting against, the lukewarm water rippling around him in the darkness like ink. Jane stood before him, clutching a dressing gown to her chest like she feared he would rip it from her tiny form by force, her back pressed against the cave wall beneath a lit torch.

"All Asgardians swim in the nude, Jane," he explained for what felt like the twentieth time. "Is your naked body truly so terrible to see that you fear even the fish may see it?" he goaded, hoping that would get her in the water.

Jane squawked angrily from her spot against the cave wall, and Loki did not have to look to know that she was blushing from chest to scalp. The woman who had come to Asgard to study the stars and be an ambassador for her world had the oddest sense of modesty, he had long ago decided. She would happily parade about in trousers as short as undergarments called "shorts", showing her comely, milky legs for all to see, and yet she could not bear to get into the water nude. She could wear her hair down and without ornament like a girl on the street, and yet she balked at the possibility of having her breasts seen. Honestly, Loki had yet to meet a woman more confusing and delightfully ridiculous than this Jane foster.

"My body is just fine, thanks," Jane retorted hotly, her hands moving from clutching at her dressing gown to perch on her round hips in what she probably thought was a powerful stance. "Women on my planet don't like being pulled from their beds at midnight, dragged through a tunnel, and then told to strip down and go for a dip!"

Loki grinned from over the inky water, the white of his teeth gleaming in the dim light. No one had spoken to him like that in a long time, and if it were anyone else, he probably would have had Jane flogged for being so disrespectful of a prince. But she was Jane - odd, sweet, clever, hot-tempered Jane, and he had already determined that he would not touch this fragile woman in anger.

"You are the one who mentioned missing your pools for swimming," he countered, stretching languidly in the water before laying back, allowing the water to hold him up. Jane made a gargled sound in the back of her throat, and Loki could barely hold in his laugh at the reason for it. Mortals are so easily flustered by bodies, he noted with no small amount of amusement. "I thought I would do you a kindness, Jane, and so I have. It is not my fault you won't get in."

He floated over to the edge once more and then leaned against the rocks, nearly biting his tongue in an attempt to hold back his laughs when he saw that she had turned away from him, as if to protect his modesty. How very… charming.

"Come now, Jane," he said, using his silkiest, most persuasive tone. "Dearest Jane. I promise to protect your honor at all costs. No one may see you, nor your nakedness, because, as you said, it is in the middle of the night. The fishermen don't venture near here until well into the morn." The prince cocked his head to one side as he watched Jane's back, noting the way the line of her shoulders had relaxed somewhat. She was cracking, so now all he had to do was drive the last nail in. "Jane," he sighed out, his voice saddened, "do you not trust me to keep your virtue intact?"

He was expecting her to rush to keep his feelings intact, like most ladies did when he pulled that line out, but what he got instead was a quite unladylike snort. "Please," she said, the force of her eye-rolling heard through her tone alone, "I trust you about as far as I can throw you… which means I don't trust you at all."

"I'm wounded, Jane!" he exclaimed, and if it weren't for his wide, pleased grin, it might have seemed genuine. "You don't trust me? I have been naught but a friend to you!"

Jane dared to send a withering look to him from over her shoulder, and at that Loki could no longer hold in his chuckles. "Ah, Jane," he breathed, almost dreamily, when his laughter died down a bit, "you continue to surprise and please me. But you would please me more if you would join me."

A long beat of silence followed, and Loki was moments away from just pulling her in with him, her protests be damned, when she finally muttered, "…Fine. Turn around."

A thrill ran through him, a satisfaction that always came with coaxing someone to do something they had been very much against, alongside that ever-present warmth he felt in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Jane and all that beautiful, milky skin. "Of course, my lady," he said, quick to oblige. The prince turned his back to her and waited, his breath held, as he finally heard the rustle of fabric hitting the ground.

He was no green boy with a crush. He knew what a woman looked like. He had touched women, tasted them, loved them, fucked them raw, and yet… and yet he still felt his mouth dry out when he heard her robe drop to the ground, and felt the stirrings of an erection when he thought of what she must look like standing there just behind him. Her dainty feet made soft noises in the black sand between the rocks, and each little sound made his heart beat a bit faster. When he felt the ripple of water against his body and heard the soft intake of breath that meant she had slipped into the pool, Loki had to suck in a deep breath to keep from whipping around to see her in all her nude glory.

"Okay," she finally announced, her voice a bit wary, "you can look now. I'm in."

He turned slowly, trying not to show just how eager he was to see her, and quickly ducked half of his face into the water to keep from truly embarrassing himself. With his mouth below the water, Loki watched Jane intensely, his eyes scanning her from the top of her head to what he could see of her skin. She was in the water up to her shoulders almost, but what she probably didn't realize was that he had much keener eyes than she did, and so the darkness and the water did not hide as much of her modesty as she would have liked.

He could see her creamy skin below the surface, indistinct as it was, and even make out the subtle color changes of her pert nipples, and… He looked away, heart pounding. He had always assumed she was attractive under her clothes, but now he knew exactly what he was missing, and he would have to do something about that.

"What would your people call this?" he asked out of the blue, startling Jane as she was drifting over to the other side of the pool. She watched him in the gloom, her posture beginning to relax more and more as he made no advances toward her. So suspicious. He doubted it was him specifically she was suspicious of, but rather all men, and he could respect that.

For now.

"We call it skinny-dipping," she replied, smiling slightly.

"An odd name," he told her, running a hand through his damp hair. "Have you ever done it before?"

Jane shrugged, turning slightly to inspect a rock that jutted from the wall. "No."

A Cheshire Cat grin stretched across Loki's face as he watched her, his form slowly but surely cutting through the water in her direction. "Ah, Jane," he purred, pleased, "I am so happy to be your first."


	2. Heat Wave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Lokane, heat wave

She must have been sticky.

Loki had seen Jane sweaty plenty of times since he had begun his extended stay with the woman, since New Mexico really wasn't the coolest of places on Midgard, and she had been truly glistening that one night when she had imbibed just a bit too much wine and they had ended up on the floor together.

But she had avoided him since then, and he had been planning on confronting her about it (honestly, did she really think he wouldn't notice how she scuttled away from him whenever propriety would allow?).

He was going to corner her and demand to know why she did not wish to speak of their night together, but when he opened the door to her lab, he found himself quite unable to do so.

Jane didn't like the heat; she had said so herself when she was cursing "this damn stupid heatwave". The only reason she really liked the desert was because of how clear the skies were, and although Loki was rather impervious to most temperatures, since his inner temperature was quite cool, he found that he agreed with her. They dealt with it differently, though. Loki liked to take cool showers a few times a day just to restore his equilibrium, and Jane liked to sleep.

He found her sleeping on the small couch in the corner of her lab, wearing only some cotton shorts and a white tank top, her body sprawled across the cushions in a way that made it clear she had been attempting to cool herself off. The air conditioning was on full blast, but it was old and did little to ease the oppressive heat in the lab. Loki pursed his lips as he watched her, noting the deep, even breaths she took. She was deeply asleep with her face turned away from him, and so his plan had to be postponed.

Still… there was no reason he had to leave.

Loki quietly closed the door and crept closer to her prone form, his steps silent against the linoleum. She was beautiful like that, sprawled on the couch, wearing next to nothing, her skin glistening with sweat in the light. She was no great Asgardian beauty, of course, but he would be lying if he said affection had not sweetened her looks to him.

Perching lightly on the edge of the couch, the prince slowly lifted his arm and traced the very tip of his finger over the curve of her cheek, feeling the stickiness of her sweat against his skin. It reminded him of when he had tasted that same sweet, clean sweat, and just the thought had him swallowing thickly, desire bubbling in his belly.

He pressed his palm to the back of her neck, just where her hair met her skin, and her reaction was immediate. The astrophysicist moaned in her sleep as if he had done something so much more than touch her neck, and Loki found himself breathing deeply to try and control that budding yearning he felt in the pit of his stomach at the sound. A sleeping maiden should not be awoken to such things without previous consent, he knew, and it wasn't likely she would even want to in this heat.

He could not give her the pleasure he wanted, but there was something else he could do.

Slowly, he pulled his hand away from her neck, and, ignoring the small sound of disappointment she made, began to peel off the layers of clothing he wore. The Midgardian shirt and slacks disappeared in moments, shortly followed by his shoes and socks, but he stopped at his undergarments. He didn't care (they had already slept together, anyway) but he rather thought she might not appreciate waking up to a naked man cuddled against her. So, he wouldn't be completely naked, but he would be touching her.

The prince gently and slowly adjusted her position on the small couch, making as much room for himself as he could, and then slid behind her, his arms wrapping around her and then slipping under her shirt. His legs slipped between hers, and her buried his face in the crook of her neck. He was significantly cooler than she was, and it made a difference. Immediately, she relaxed against him, a sigh of pleasure leaving her, and began to shift a bit, seeking more contact with him.

Pleased, he smiled into her neck, "Sleep now, sweet Jane," he purred, voice just above a breath, "I'll keep you cool for as long as you like."


	3. Aether After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:Is it too late to request a prompt? It's my headcanon that after Jane learns of the Aether (kind of), she seeks out Loki. With his magic and 'evil' nature, she figures if anyone has answers about what's happening to her it would be him. (Loki can be crazy if you want, but in my headcanon he's kind of nice to her - but you can write it however you want) Thanks if you fill it! :)))

Everything was supposed to be alright after Malekith was was killed. The Aether was extracted from her, and she was no worse for wear. The world was saved, at great cost, and all would be well.

Except it wasn't.

Thor was more damaged by the loss of both his brother and his mother than he let on, and their relationship quickly fell apart. She had tried her hardest to hold on, but somethings couldn't be mended, not completely, and the tiny fissures that had splintered into gaping holes that tore them apart. Thor went to fight with the Avengers, and Jane was left on her own.

She had always intended to tell him about her concerns, about the… side effects she experienced after the Aether left her, but she did not want to concern Thor, and soon enough she they were over, and the chance was gone. Sure, she could have still reached out to him - he had vowed to protect her and honor her at all costs, even after they broke up - but her pride would not allow it.

So, she suffered in silence.

The dreams, the odd bursts of energy, the healing… Jane kept it all to herself for as long as she could, less because she wished to be a martyr and more because she just didn't have anybody who could understand, let alone help her. No one knew what it was like to have the writhing, boiling energy of the Aether in their veins. No one could relate to watching their eyes turn black in the mirror some mornings. No one could understand her horror when she cut herself on a stray piece of metal and watched as her skin knit back together in a hazy red glow.

No one could understand, except for one person. And that person was dead.

Thor had long expounded on how Loki was the keenest scholar in Asgard, telling her stories of his great cleverness, and Jane knew for certain that he had had direct contact with the Tesseract. If anyone knew how to help her, it was him.

But he was dead.

Jane sighed, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she slumped in her desk chair, a blanket thrown over her shoulders. She had hardly slept in a week and the strain was wearing on her. She hadn't eaten in days, too, and she found that she really didn't care. Her heart hurt, missing the man who could have brought at least some comfort to her, and her body ached as it always did since the Aether was taken from her.

She was getting desperate and she knew it.

"I need help," she whispered, hot tears burning behind her eyelids as she fought to stay awake in her chair. "I need help, and I don't have anyone to ask." She had never believed in gods, never put any stock in prayer (but the power of the placebo, of course, was fact), and she had never even been baptized as anything as a baby, but Thor had told her that sometimes the myriad of higher beings in the universe tuned their ears to prayers. Sometimes, if they were feeling merciful, one might even do something about it.

At the end of her rope, desperate, exhausted, and terribly alone, Jane prayed.

The words tumbled out like they had been waiting to be released for some time, and she was barely aware of what she was saying at all. "I don't know what's wrong with me," she began, voice hitching with tears, "ever since the- the Aether I haven't been right. I have visions, and sometimes things explode around me, and- and I can't sleep. I'm so tired. I feel like I might die, if it- if it weren't for the- th- the healing." Her arms wound around middle, trying desperately to hold herself together.

"No one knows what it's like," she whispered, hoping desperately someone was listening. "I tried to explain, but no one understood. Thor was the only one- but he…"

Jane swallowed convulsively and fell silent, her eyes staring ahead of her at the dark windows sightlessly. What foolishness was she attempting? No one was listening to her, to such a pathetic little human huddled in a chair in the middle of nowhere.

Despair gripped her, and she might have sat there staring at the darkness outside for minutes or hours. It didn't matter to her. Exhaustion and stress had a funny way of warping time, but she couldn't sleep. Sleep meant nightmares, and she just… couldn't take anymore of those.

"Thor is a fool," the voice was low, rough, and familiar, but she couldn't even work up the energy for that. A dull, confused look flitted over her drawn features as she turned her head to see the intruder. Jane's lips parted in surprise as Loki's regal form loomed over her, only a few feet away from her.

"He is a cruel, terrible fool to leave you like this," he continued, face grim as he watched her. "He should have known better."

Jane blinked owlishly at him, a few thoughts running into each other sluggishly in her mind. Why was Loki in her house? Wasn't he supposed to be dead? Was he there to hurt her?

No, probably not, she decided slowly as she watched his face. He looked… peeved, but not at her. And if she were in her right mind, she might have even noticed the pity in his eyes, thinly veiled as it was by his anger. "I didn't tell him," she finally replied, her voice soft as a breath.

"No, of course you didn't," he said, his look changing to something forbidding, "but he still should have known better." Loki stepped closer to her and she watched, numb, as he knelt down beside her chair, bringing them to eye-level with one another. "You, who have done so much good for him," he continued, staring intently into her eyes. "You do not deserve to suffer like this, Jane."

Her breath hitched and her lower lip trembled, and if she were rested and thinking clearly, she would have been running away from him by now. He was doing something, she knew, but it had been so long since someone had shown her this kind of pity, since even a hint of understanding lit someone's eyes, so she didn't bother wasting precious energy being suspicious.

Loki lifted his large, pale hand and gently pushed her hair back from her eyes, his thumb softly rubbing against the swell of her cheekbone. The touch was electric, his cool temperature searing her feverish skin, and Jane found herself leaning into it, a whimper leaving her throat.

"There, there, Jane," he whispered, slipping his arm underneath her knees. "I'm going to fix you, dearest Jane, have no fear." His other arm braced against her back, and with no effort at all he pulled her from her chair and cradled her against his chest. Jane clung weakly to his surcoat, her face pressed against his delightfully cool neck, and breathed a small sigh of relief. A small part of her told her that this was wrong, that she shouldn't trust him, but he was offering her escape, and that overruled everything else.

"I'm going to take you home, sweetling," he whispered, his voice as soft and gentle as as summer breeze. "No one may harm you there. You will be safe, and you will never see that brute again. I will make you whole again."

That didn't sound quite right to her. There was something wrong about the wording and it bothered her, but he smelled like pine and fresh rain, his voice was like the sweetest of lullabies, and he was promising her relief. Nothing else mattered besides that.

"Okay," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

A smile she couldn't see spread across Loki's handsome face, a smile of bone deep satisfaction and more than a hint of malice. Finally.


	4. Skinny Dipping II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Lokane, hedge maze

Her dreams were always the same.

The sunlight around her was the golden hue of her memories of childhood, the warmth kissing the crown of her head, settling in her bones, and filling her with such serenity that Jane knew this place was heaven. Soft grass tickled under her bare feet, lacking all the prickly itchiness that came with reality, and a sweet-scented breeze ruffled her hair. Birds sang an unfamiliar tune somewhere nearby, and she could not help but turn her head to listen, her eyes closed and a smile on her lips.

She knew this place. Jane had been there many times since her dreams began, although she was certain she had never visited it in the waking (real) world. She had long ago memorized the scent of the breeze, the feeling of her foreign, silk dress, and the gentle, lilting voice of the one who called to her. This place was heaven, but even heaven had its frustrations.

Always, she heard him. Always, she searched for him in the maze of hedges and trees that made up this otherworldly garden. Always, he could never be found.

"Jane," she heard, just beneath the birdsong, his voice low and cloying. She tilted her head away from where the birds trilled, trying to hear him better, the sunlight washing her gold.

"Jane," he whispered again, so softly that it was as if he stood right beside her, whispering in her ear, his lips just brushing her cheek as he spoke. Jane gasped softly as if she felt his touch, her body nearly shivering with delight at even the phantom caress. "Sweet Jane," the voice continued, this time farther away, as if he had taken a step back from her, his disembodied form slowly inching away from her. She knew this part too.

"Tell me where you are," she pleaded, breathless, knowing he could hear her. He always did. Her eyes opened and scanned the garden around her, but all she saw was immensely tall hedges full of scented flowers and tiny, jewel-like insects that sang when she dared to touch them.

The voice made a soft tsk and seemed to retreat farther. "No, no, my lovely, clever Jane," he teased, "you must find me. I'm waiting for you, Jane. Come find me." His voice faded away, mingling with the breeze, and Jane stood there, a small frown on her lips. She had run after him so many times, had seen every inch of this beautiful, confusing maze, and yet she never caught him.

Why should I look, when he deliberately hides himself from me? she thought, sighing softly to herself.

Suddenly, his voice was near again, but no longer was it the softest of whispers. It was goading, it was forceful, it was might have even been annoyed. "Come find me, you blasted woman," he demanded, nearly bowling her over with surprise. He had never done that before. "Lift up your skirts and run to me, Jane!"

Heart pounding, Jane had little choice in the matter. This was her dream, but he was the center of it, and she did want to catch him. If he asked her to run, she would.

The woman hiked up her skirts in a tight fist, and for the first time since her dreams began, she ran. Her steps were muffled by the grass, and her chestnut hair streamed behind her like a shining standard, her legs leaping and bounding forward, towards the center of the maze. He was there. He had to be.

"Come, Jane," the voice goaded, nearly gleeful, as she ran full-force through the corridors of leaves and round sharp corners. "Oh, but you do look so ravishing like this, chasing after me, seeking me. Run, little Jane!"

In the dream, her legs did not ache, and so she sped up. He was waiting for her, and she needed to find him, to see him at last. Jane careened around a corner, eyes wild and dress askew, just as a pair of long, hard arms shot out from the hedge and caught her, using her own momentum to pull her into a small alcove in the hedges.

Jane gasped, heart in her throat. She had never seen another living soul in the maze, but all the same, she knew this was him.

With one hand buried in her thick hair and the other firmly holding the side of her neck, Loki stared down at her from his great height. His cheeks were flushed, his hair a mess, and his eyes alight with a fire she had never seen before. He looked as though he had also been running, or as if he was a man on the brink of madness.

"Jane," he whispered, voice hoarse, "finally."

His lips were hot and and demanding on hers, as if he had yearned for this for so long that it physically pained him to have it at last. His long fingers tightened in her hair like a vice, and if it weren't a dream, Jane would have surely scolded him throughly for it. But as it was, she did not care. All she cared about was the way tasted like spices and cool water, and how he felt so solid against her as he pressed her back into a stone pillar, and then how his fingers felt as he hiked up her skirt, his palm running up her thigh and then over her hip. Wild with satisfaction, adrenalin, and the abandon that dreaming allowed, Jane encouraged him, her body leaning into his without restraint.

She gasped, her fingers tightening in his tunic as he pressed himself between her legs, and he took that moment to slide his lips down her jaw and to her neck. His other hand left her hair in favor of sliding down to her other thigh, and then she was suddenly off the ground, her weight held by his hands and the stone behind her.

"Loki," she breathed as he pushing the front of her bodice down, revealing all of her soft, delicate skin to his demanding mouth. One hand left her thigh and bunched her skirt up further, then slid hotly down her belly and between her legs, making her whimper and press her face against the curve of his jaw and ear. "Loki!"

"My sweet Jane," he breathed into the hollow of her neck, his long, dexterous fingers doing their clever work without pause as she clung to him. "I'm going to have you now." He lifted his dark head from her neck and looked straight into her eyes as he pulled his hand away, his expression nearly crazed with his desire. Those fingers expertly began to undo the tiny buttons of his leather trousers, and Jane found her toes curling with delight when the last one came undone. The woman lifted her chin and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, eyes half-lidded as she waited for him.

"Loki," she whispered as she felt him so, so close to her. His eyes burned into her, feral and hot as the sun.

"Jane," he replied, voice as rough as gravel but nearly reverent in tone, just as he bucked his hips forward to-

She woke to the sound of birds singing on her balcony. Confused and dazed with sleep and unfulfilled lust, the astrophysicist blinked owlishly at the light that streamed through the windows of her chambers. At first her mind was a muddled mess, but as she truly awoke, the dream slammed her full force in the chest.

Mortified, the woman fairly leapt out of bed, her whole body flushed with both passion and embarrassment. A cursory mental check of her body told her all she needed to know - she had just had one of the best and most humiliating wet dreams of her life.

Loki. Her friend Loki, who was among the first to accept her in Asgard. Her most annoying nuisance, who constantly badgered her to stray from her research. Her guide through the strange and awesome realm he called home. She had had a wet dream about him.

Jane groaned and sank onto her mattress, her head in her hands.

How was she ever going to look at him in the face again? It had been a very long time since she had been with a man, and apparently her repressed hormones had focused on him, the one man who would never be interested in her that way in all of the universe. He was way above her pay-grade, as it were, and now she had to sit and have breakfast with him like she didn't just almost have sex with him in her own head.

"I need a boyfriend," she muttered into her palms, forlorn. "Or at least a good lay. Should have never gone skinny-dipping with him, too. Oh my god." And he would probably know the second she looked at him, the bastard. He always seemed to read her face like that.

There was only one way to solve this, then, she decided.

She would simply have to avoid Loki until she got over her sexual frustration - by which she meant finding someone willing to have a one night stand with her, just to get it out of her system.

That couldn't be too hard, right?


	5. Skinny Dipping III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Lokane, court

How. How was it possible he lost her?

She was just a mortal - a loud, naive, blundering mortal that couldn't walk quietly even if she tried. She shouldn't have been able to disappear like this, not when they had been spending most of their days together since she had arrived over a month before. He was the one that showed her around the palace, and he was the one that knew all of her favorite haunts, but somehow - somehow - she had disappeared.

He knew she was still in Asgard because he had spoken to Thor, who had sat with her at breakfast (which she had taken far earlier than normal for over a week now), and he was fairly certain he would have heard about it if she abandoned her assignment and went back to Midgard. But every time he thought he would find her, whether in the observatory or in the gardens, she was mysteriously absent.

It grated on him.

At first he assumed she was just busy doing some of her mortal rituals, or that she had perhaps decided to explore the city on her own. That did not bother him, so he had stayed back, expecting that she would seek him out as she always did within a day or so. And so he waited.

But she never came, and soon he realized that she had for some irksome reason changed her whole schedule, knocking it out of its previous alignment with his. It rubbed his nerves raw to have his routine disrupted like that (and she had become a part of his routine, an important part), and it quickly became apparent that it had nothing to do with anybody else but him. To his knowledge, he had done thing to warrant her avoidance, but females were a strange ilk, and he knew that it was entirely possible she had taken offense to something he did, and was punishing him for it.

He would not stand for such behavior.

Women had been angry at him before and he rarely lifted a finger to rectify the situation, but Jane wasn't just a woman. She was his friend, and he did not take losing his friends lightly, not when he had already decided to keep them.

He had already planned on seeking her out and pulling her out of whatever sulky pouting she was obviously taking part in, but when a court rumor reached his ears, it suddenly became all the more urgent. No, Jane was not part of the Aesir court, but they paid attention to her, and so he gave the rumor quite a bit of credence. Frey had been seen dining with the mortal, and that… that was not good. Not at all.

Moments after hearing this bit of news, Loki was striding down the halls of Asgard, clearly on a mission. He could not - would not - allow any relationship between Jane and Frey. Not on his watch. Frey already had more mistresses than he could count, he quite married, and if she wasn't careful, Jane would end up barefoot and pregnant like the rest of women. Just the thought made Loki gnash his teeth together in frustration.

He found her in a tiny alcove in the vast library of the palace, a pile of books taller than her on one of the desk she was huddled over and what looked like several battered notebooks stacked on the other side. She was completely buried in her work, unaware of the world around her, and that suited him just fine.

It was late and except for maybe one or two other souls, they were alone in the vast library. Perfect.

"Are you consorting with Frey?" Loki's voice, low as it was, seemed almost as loud as a thunderclap in the silence of the library, and if it wasn't for his deep irritation, he would have cracked a grin at the noise she made and just how high she jumped in her seat. The woman whirled around in her seat, her stricken expression settling into something almost like relief when she saw who it was who had snuck up on her.

"Oh, god, Loki, you scared the crap out of me," she said, laughing breathlessly as she swiped a lock of chestnut hair from her forehead. When he didn't respond, but rather continued to stare at her expectantly, Jane swallowed nervously and ducked her head under the pretense of getting her notes organized. "Um, what are you doing here, Loki? Aren't you usually in your lab at this time?"

"Are you avoiding me to spend time with Frey?" he demanded, ignoring her question entirely. Usually he was more subtle than this, but he had missed her, and the idea of Jane leaving him to spend time with Frey, of all Asgardians, made something in him snap. Jane opened her mouth to say something to him, her expression obviously surprised, but he did not give her time to respond. "Or is it because you have already tired of me? Hm, Jane?" Loki crowded her against her desk, brows pinched, jaw clenched, and nostrils flared as he sucked in deep breaths.

Jane stared at him for a long moment, gobsmacked. He could see the wheels in her clever mind working, and it irked him to know she did not have an immediate answer for him. "I'm- I haven't-" she began before he cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand.

"You have been avoiding me," he accused, anger flashing in his eyes, covering the hurt. "You have been. This past week I have seen neither hide nor hair of you, and I know for certain you have gone to great lengths to change your habits so we do not meet. I would have the truth as to why."

Jane stared with wide eyes up at Loki, clearly at a loss for words. But just when he thought she would stand up and try to defend herself, or deny her transgressions, something curious happened: she swallowed thickly and beginning at the apples of her cheeks, her skin began to flush a deep, dark red. Loki blinked, his anger momentarily leaving him in favor of sweeping confusion as he watched Jane's eyes widen in horror and humiliation.

"Oh my god," she muttered, covering her face with her hands as she bent away from him, apparently to hide her glowing cheeks from his view. Bemused, he leaned closer, trying to see what in the world was wrong with this strange little mortal. "Oh, god, I know I must look like such a jerk," she squeaked out, still covering her face. She was determinedly not looking at him but rather peering through her fingers at a bookshelf on the opposite wall, and that… irked him.

"I swear, I'm not mad at you or anything," she told him earnestly, only confusing him more. "I wasn't- I mean, I was avoiding you, but it's not because of anything you've done, I promise! I was just- I just had a- oh my god, this is so embarrassing." Jane groaned and promptly dropped her head onto the open book on her desk. Completely lost, Loki could only stare, unsettled, as she continued to babble. "I was just going through some stuff, you know? And I didn't want to make anything weird between us or anything, so I thought, you know, I could put some space between us for a little while, do what I needed to do, and then it wouldn't be weird. But I just suck so bad at this sort of thing that I've been mucking everything up, and now you're mad at me and I can't stop thinking about it and-"

"Thinking of what, Jane," he interjected, cutting off her stream of nonsense before he could completely lose hold of the situation. Loki placed his hand on the back of her chair and leaned over her, trying to peer into her pink face. Perhaps I should have her sedated, he thought, concerned for her wellbeing. Obviously she was cracking from the strain of-

"I had a- a dream," she blurted out. Horrified, she sat straight up and clapped her hands over her mouth. Loki reared back so as to not have his nose bashed in by her skull. Concern filtered in through his bemusement as he watched her, the subject of dreams being a very loaded one. Dreams could be visions, they could predict the future or spell disaster. If Jane had a dream that disturbed her so much as to avoid him at all costs, he needed to know what it was about.

"Jane," he said, his tone turning very serious as he touched her shoulder, which seemed to only make her blush worse. "You must tell me what you dreamed. Oft dreams give us hints of the future, and if you saw something that has scared you so…"

"Oh my god," Jane whispered, her expression pained, only furthering his concern.

"Tell me, Jane," he urged, kneeling beside her chair. His expression was grimly determined, and in that moment he knew he would do just about anything to bring down whatever had caused her such distress. Jane was his friend. She was his to protect, to torment, to tease. No one was allowed to make her look like that besides him. "I am Loki, Prince of Asgard," he declared, expression set in steely determination, "I will not let anyone-"

"It was a sex dream!" she exclaimed, nearly wailing the truth for all to hear.

"-harm you…" Loki blinked, his mind going blank for a moment as he tried to process what Jane had told him. Slowly, as if testing the words on his tongue, he said, "It was a-"

"Yes," Jane interrupted, clearly not wanting him to repeat her humiliation over again. The truth slowly dawned on Loki, and as he began to digest it, his expression began to slowly shift from blank confusion to understanding.

"It was an erotic dream with… you in it?" he asked, wishing to be completely clear on the subject.

"Yes," Jane groaned impatiently, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes.

"And… I assume that I was also in this dream of yours?" he ventured, his expression slowly lightening into something more and more deviously amused than before.

Jane made a strangled noise in the back of her throat and nodded, her ears pink and her eyes still covered. Loki sucked in a breath silent breath, his eyes narrowing on the woman before him with sharp focus.

Jane had had an erotic dream featuring him.

And it must have been truly something, too, if it had turned her into this blushing maiden who couldn't even look at him. It had forced her to avoid him for a whole week, and that was actually deeply satisfying. Loki bit back a grin as he watched her as she stewed in her humiliation, which he took as her recompense for abandoning him for a week.

"Well," he began, drawing out the word into something calm and slightly bewildered, lulling her into a false sense of security, "are you not going to share the details?"

Jane gave a small jerk, as if the idea physically pained her, before she shot up from her seat and scrambled around him. Her face was the color of Thor's cape and she almost tripped over her own feet twice as she fled, exclaiming, "Oh my god, men are all the same!" and "I hate you so much." The moment her back was turned he began to laugh - a deep, rolling belly laugh that had him collapsing on the floor like a boy, one that had her throwing up her arms and scurrying out of sight even more quickly.

"I will hear of it, Jane!" he declared loudly between howls of laughter. Certainly, he'd be damned if she got away from him now. He would hear of what had so flustered her, and when he did, he was fairly certain he would do all in his power to recreate it.


	6. Festival Of Cages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Lokane, Night festival

"Fresh crop of Caruu'x! Just fried!"

"Come play a Mind Game! If I can't guess your most pleasant memory, you get a bag of star dust!"

The Midnight Festival was the largest gathering of merchants, entertainers, children, and rogues in the galaxy. It spanned three planets, two moons, and lasted only a week. It was the rowdiest, most colorful party in all the galaxy; so legendary that even Asgardians attended it, both selling their coveted wares and just enjoying themselves. It was a cacophony of noise, color, and scents, crammed with people of every shape, color, and size seeking someone, something, or nothing at all.

Loki was in attendance with his brother and his brother's friends, but he had long since left them to their own devices - which usually included getting into brawls and consuming all the alcohol they could in one sitting before moving onto the next temporary tavern unlucky enough to host them. That wasn't his style. The prince enjoyed strolling through the festivities, seeing the different races all in one place, watching clever pick-pockets with amusement, and occasionally buying a trinket or two for his mother.

Well, that's what his brother thought, at any rate.

Truly, Loki's greatest motivation for attending the festival was the truly exceptional black market it harbored. Ravagers, slavers, collectors, and thieves of all kinds hawked their wares in stalls hidden behind a field of thinly woven magical barriers, just keeping out the people who didn't have any reason to be there.

Slipping behind a stall selling what looked like mood-changing fabric, Loki walked toward and then straight through an unassuming abandoned cart and into an alley crowded with stalls and less than reputable patrons. Not all things being sold were illegal, of course, but still, many people covered their faces, wishing not to be recognized. Loki could have easily changed every part of his identity, but he had no qualms with being seen there, despite the seedy reputation. None of these vagrants could ever set foot in Asgard, after all. And his fellow customers would no sooner implicate him than they would themselves.

Back straight, expression cool, and bearing as regal as ever, Loki strolled down the alley, pausing every once in a while to inspect the offerings at particular stalls. He had already purchased several bolts of the finest silk for his dear mother for new gowns, but he eyed a silver lute contemplatively, knowing she would also be delighted to have such a beautiful instrument. If she didn't know where it came from, of course.

The man thought about it for a moment before deciding to move on. Frigga would love the gift, but she would probably be able to discern where it came from in an instant, and he would rather spare himself her disapproving look. Loki moved on to the next stall, this one covered in miscellaneous artifacts from dozens of different planets. He was idly inspecting a book that appeared to be bound in some unfortunate soul's skin when he caught a strange gleam from the corner of his eye.

Loki turned and peered behind several stacked barrels, his eyes narrowing slightly at what he found there.

A tiny woman sat in what appeared to be a glass box, her clothing tattered and her long chestnut hair obscuring her face as she bent her head down. Her thin, pale arms were wrapped around her midsection and her feet were bare, the delicate skin that was shown covered in splotchy burns and what looked like lash-marks. Something in his gut twisted when he looked at the pitiful little creature, forcing him to step around the barrels and closer to her cage.

There was a reason he did not venture near the slaver's side of the black market. He found the act of slavery distasteful, especially when it was so dishonorably used as an excuse to sexually exploit females. Asgard had banned slavery nearly sixty thousand years before, with good reason.

Loki slowly bent down to the woman's level on the dusty floor, but she did not seem to notice him until he was directly in front of her - with good reason, he realized, startled.

A heavy, charmed muzzle was clamped around the lower half of her face and down her neck. Obviously, it was meant for someone much stronger than this tiny creature, because it looked as if she could barely lifted her head with the weight of it. Large doe eyes, rimmed with thick, black lashes looked at him from over the top of the ugly thing, and he was vaguely disconcerted to be looked at so - like she could see right through him, and like she wanted to wanted nothing more than to rip his throat out.

The prince, instead of being repulsed, inched closer, taking in what he could see of her face now. Those big eyes were set in a small, heart-shaped face, with dark, sharp brows cutting a pale forehead. Her hair was almost honeyed and long, curling at the ends in soft curls that many women would most likely envy. Her clothing was foreign and not exactly appealing, since they were tattered beyond repair, dirty, and too large for her small frame.

The longer he stared at her, the more agitated she became, her brows drawing together in a frustrated, hostile look. She looked as though she wanted to hit the glass, but by her posture and how she refused to touch it, she had already learned the painful lesson as to why that was a bad idea.

"Greetings," he said, smiling slightly when her pretty brown eyes flashed at him.

"I am Loki. Who are you?" he asked, as if he could not plainly see the muzzle on her delicate features.

It was amazing how much she was able to convey with just her eyes, because with only a look, she told him just how funny she thought that was. It was a flat look, like he was wont to give Thor when he was being particularly stupid, and the very idea of being looked at like that by this tiny, caged woman made him crack a smile.

A clattering rose up behind him, but the prince did not look away from the woman even when a panicked voice piped up behind him, "Oh, oh, your highness!" The owner of the stall circled around to his right side, cloak trailing behind him in the dust. "Oh, your highness, how might I help you this day? Perhaps with some precious, enchanted stones? Maybe your highness would like to see some ancient, forbidden books?"

The woman's eyes shot up to the stall-keeper, and Loki was once more impressed with her power of expression. Pure loathing poured from her as she looked up at the man, her pretty eyes fairly spiting fire at him from her position on the ground. With one last look at the intriguing creature, Loki stood and faced the man, who looked quite nervous.

He slowly edged closer to the cage, as if to block Loki's view of the woman, which only served to make him more curious. "This woman," he began, tone sharp and authoritative, "I wish to see her out of her cage."

Panic widened the man's eyes, and his two sets of hands began to wring around themselves as his neck bobbed nervously. "Ah, your most gracious highness," he began, clearly grasping for some excuse to get him away from the girl, "if you would allow me, I would advise you to look at my other wares. This one is… ah, foul-tempered and primitive. Little good as a slave. But if you would like a better one, I could-"

"You will show me her." Loki's voice cut like a whip through the man, and he could see the yellow skin around his eyes crinkle with resignation as he weighed the chance to get his hands on the gold in his royal pockets and whatever risk he was taking with the harmless girl in the cage.

Finally, his greed won out.

The man bobbed his head in several quick nods and turned toward the glass cage and pressed two of his four hands against it. The structure shivered once, then began to fold in on itself, the glass folding downwards in progressively smaller pieces until only a small, flat piece remained on the ground. Loki watched as the stall-keeper nudged her side with his metal boot, his hands reaching down to haul her up when she did not move quickly enough for him.

Legs obviously weak but spirit strong, the girl tried to jerk away from the man, but only succeeded in having her ear cuffed. Loki's eyes narrowed as he watched this disgusting display, his skin crawling with repulsion. If he were Thor, he would have already killed the man by now.

"Behave, girl," the stall-keeper said, clutching her arm with bruising force as he pushed her toward the prince for his inspection.

She was shorter than he had anticipated, with her frail body coming up to only his collar if she stood on her toes. But even at her short height, weak and sore as she most likely was, she stood with her back straight, her shoulders square, and her head up - which must have been extremely difficult, because he knew from experience that muzzles weighed a lot more than they looked.

"Why is she muzzled?" he asked sharply, lifting a hand to cup her chin. His jaw worked as he felt just how heavy the machine on her mouth was, before she ripped her head out of his hands with a hot glare.

The stall-keeper gave her a rough prod in the ribs for that, but she merely stared ahead mutinously. "She, ah, bit at the last customer to see her out of her holding area," the man explained, his cheeks turning slightly green with a blush. "I did not anticipate Terran's would have such sharp teeth, you see. The muzzle worked well because it kept her teeth and her sharp tongue at bay."

The prince's dark brows raised as he watched the woman, impressed by what he had heard. She had tried to take a bite out of a potential buyer and apparently caused quite the ruckus with her words - enough to warrant being muzzled, which brought down her value at the market. His lips twitched, but he held back his smile to give the man a cold look.

"Take it off."

"I- my prince, I would not-"

"I said, take it off."

The ugly thing collapsed from around her face at snap of the fingers, revealing the sweet face he had imagined. Full, pink lips, a dainty chin, and a long, pale neck were revealed when the muzzle fell away. A pretty thing.

She licked her lips and raised her chin higher, a challenge in her eyes. She dared him to come closer, to allow her the chance to do to him as she did to others, and that spine of hers endeared her all the more to him.

"What is your name?" he repeated, voice quieter and expression solemn.

She looked as though she did not intend to respond for a moment, but eventually swallowed and said, "My name is Jane."

Her voice cracked a bit from disuse, but it was lilting, delicate, so unlike the hard, angry look in her eyes. "Do you have any… skills, Jane?" he asked her, curious. Obviously, she was from Midgard, but the man had to have taken her for a reason. Slavers usually abducted people for their skills, beauty, or for just getting in the way. He wondered what she had done to warrant kidnapping.

"I'm a doctor," she told him, fiercely proud, eyes burning like liquid fire. "An astrophysicist. I study the stars. I am not a slave, or a servant!"

Loki arched a brow, surprised, and glanced at the stall-keeper. "She is skilled with numbers and mechanics," the man explained, beginning his sales pitch. "Can't cook for you, I'm afraid, but she can balance books, and would be a decent assistant! Among other things, of course."

Among other things.

The prince bit back a disgusted scowl as he looked back at Jane. Jane, with her pretty face, slim figure, exotic accent, and fierce nature. He highly doubted the stall-keeper had taken her for her skill in naming the stars. She was just lucky she had been brazen enough to fight back, else she might have been sold to any number of disreputable characters by now.

He stared into Jane's eyes for a long moment, weighing his options.

By rights, he should just leave her there. It wasn't his business, after all. He couldn't go around saving every slave in the black market. And if he did buy her, what could he do with her? Asgard didn't have slaves, and weren't overly fond of mortals in the first place. It would be more trouble than it was probably worth to take her, especially if, as he suspected, she would fight him tooth and nail every step of the way.

But as he stared into those large, amber-brown eyes, Loki could not find it within himself to deny her, despite all the very good reasons he should.

Jane did not beg or cry. She did not try to beguile him into taking her, to escape her tiny cell. Despite the cuts and burns on her hands, despite the fact that she obviously had not been fed, she stood tall, pride shining through, and stared him down like the strongest of Asgardian warriors.

Try it, her eyes said. Try and hurt me. See what happens.

A smile curled his lips upward as he watched her.

"I'll take her."


	7. Stargazing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: I love the idea of Loki and Jane stargazing together :)

Jane stared up at the stars, her eyes tired and scratchy from tears. She blinked once, then twice, and then a third time, trying to rid them of the raw feeling.

This is why you swore off of relationships, she chided herself mutinously as she watched the sky above her twinkle merrily. After Donald, you learned your lesson. You swore you weren't going to do this again - and now look at you!

The scientist sniffled angrily and wrapped her blanket more tightly around her shoulders, determined not to give into the cold. Usually she would have lit a fire, but when she was upset her hands had the extremely annoying habit of shaking, so she had been unable to strike a match, no matter how many times she tried. With no one to ask for help except him, Jane had simply leaned back in her lawn chair and huddled under her blankets, hoping the sight of the stars would ease her tender (ridiculous) feelings.

Normally they sat together on the roof, gazing up at the stars. She liked to explain to him all the different constellations and the stories behind them, and in return he would describe those of Asgard and beyond. He always lit the fire, and she always prepared the blankets.

But not tonight.

Tonight, he had been terrible, and Jane could not stand the idea of sharing her rooftop with him, nor her precious stars. This was her place. He could have the apartment and the lab and the whole god damn town if he wanted, but he wasn't going to take her roof.

If he wants to leave, then he can just go ahead, she thought angrily, even as tears once more pooled in her eyes, I don't care. He's a jackass.

Jane rubbed her eyes tired with her fist, trying to rid them of the foolish tears, and then pulled the fleece blanket up past her nose, keeping out the chill. On any other night she would have been absorbed in the view of the stars, but she was frustratingly distracted, so she turned on her side and closed her eyes. There would be no stargazing for her tonight.

I can't believe he said that to me, she thought, tightening her arms around herself.

Really, she shouldn't have been surprised, she reminded herself. How stupid was she to think he had changed? He was still Loki. He still hated everyone. He still couldn't care less if she lived or died. He just used her as a means to an end, and for an easy bedmate.

A sour taste filled the back of her mouth when she thought of what exactly he had said to her, the words ringing in her mind as if he was standing right before her. It was like every other relationship she had ever been in, except he would probably kill her if he could. At least Donald never threatened her life.

You have two PhD's, and yet you are still so painfully stupid. Amazing, Jane. Really.

Her fingers clenched in the blanket with the effort it took to not let her chin wobble.

You knew not to do this, she chided herself mercilessly. He's a killer! An alien who wants to rule worlds! And you still went and- and felt things for him, you idiot.

It began with an innocent comment about her past relationships, and it had somehow ended up with him saying, "You think I care? Don't be stupid, Jane. I don't care about you, about your life, about your people. None of it matters to me in the slightest. You are dust. So long as your research reaches fruition, you could die at my feet and I would not lift a finger to help you."

He had continued, mercilessly, telling her about how he had taken pity on her, how he could sleep with any other woman in the galaxy (how he had), his low, cold voice cutting through her to the marrow. He wanted to her hurt her, and on some level she knew that it was probably a defense tactic, but that was hardly an excuse for intentionally wounding her so. She didn't deserve to be treated that way. Not by anyone.

It was just supposed to be casual sex between them, anyway. She wasn't supposed to be hurt if he said mean things to her every now and again. But Jane had never been good at the "no strings attached" part of sexuality, and it proved to be her ruin. While he obviously felt nothing for her, she felt… something for him. Something fragile and vulnerable, something he was squeezing so tightly that she knew he would eventually crush it into nothing.

I'm so stupid.

Only a fool would have feelings for a god.

Jane swallowed thickly around the jagged lump in her throat and tried to calm herself down. Her mind kept circling back to what he had said to her, but she knew that was just a cycle she had to break. She tried to clear her mind, to force out his sharp voice, but the cold reminded her of his touch, and fleece blanket brought back memories of when they slept together beneath it.

More than anything, she would have liked to crawl into her bed and forget everything (Thor, her work, him) but she couldn't. She doubted he had even stuck around, but on the off chance he was down there, she could not bear to see him. Jane needed to be alone for a good, long while, so she would suffer the cold and the discomfort.

Sniffling, she eventually managed a light doze. The roof was her safe place, memories be damned, and there was a certain amount of peace to be found there that she couldn't find anywhere else. Her mind gradually quieted, her heart slowed, and she slept.

Some time later, the lawn chair she was on silently began to expand, and a thick down blanket was draped over her flimsy one. Warmth suffused her as a fire roared to life in the pit, but not even that could relieve the tightness of her mouth or the knotted position of her brows. No, that was not eased until a lithe body slid under the blanket behind her, one long, muscled arm slipping around her to tug her closer.

"I'm sorry," a voice whispered into her hair, low and pained. "I'm sorry, Jane. I did not mean it. Not a word."

Loki ought out her hand and tightly entwined his fingers with hers, his face buried in her hair. She could not hear him, but the way her body relaxed into his hold encouraged him to continue his murmured apologies. "I'm a fool," he breathed into her ear. "I am a foolish, jealous man, Jane. I hurt you deliberately so you might feel what I feel - I just-" His eyes closed and his jaw clenched as he tried to find the right words.

"I cannot bear the thought of you living your life with another," he whispered, voice tight. "I cannot. You mentioned that man and I- I reacted. Poorly. I am sorry, Jane."

The would-be king pressed his forehead into her hair, his expression anguished.

"You are not dust, Jane. You are my everything."


	8. A Bad Way To Flirt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Is it too late for prompts? How about a competitive Lokane? Ey?

She hated him.

Really, she did. Jane had never hated anyone in her life before, but she hated him. He was such a- such a shit. Nothing he did around her was tolerable.

If she got an A on a test (which was always), he got an A+. If she earned praise from a teacher for her cleverness, he got fawned over. If she got the latest issue of Scientific American, he had the unpublished, brand new journals. Everything, everything with him was a competition.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was just coincidence, or based on his actual skill, but it wasn't. And it wouldn't even be that bad if he just cheated and lied and charmed his way up because he wanted to, but he did it just for her. Loki Odinson, star pupil, spoiled rich kid, charming bad boy, liked nothing more than to screw her life up. He loved watching her fume and huff, she knew. He was always smirking at her when he one-upped her; his stupid, handsome face so smug and smiley it made her stomach hurt just to look at it.

Jane hated it. She loathed him.

All she wanted was to get the very best grades she could in her classes and then go to a good college. She didn't care about anything besides that, and she was content being ignored by everyone besides a select few people at school. She was nearly through, too, but she went and ruined her peace in the middle of Junior year, when she became his "study buddy" in AP European History.

It was all fine and dandy when he ignored her, but then he started knicking her pencils, which he then followed up with changing her ringtone to bawdy songs, and then he began to up the ante. Her favorite hairband mysteriously disappeared, Erik got a call from him complaining about how she was abandoning their assignments when she put an end to their acquaintance, and even went so far as to tell Thor (who she may or may not have had a tiny crush on) that she was just "too nervous" to be around Loki because of her "feelings".

But nothing - nothing - compared to what he had just done.

Her favorite book, the one her father gave to her, Exploration Of The Cosmos And Beyond, was gone. It had been in her back pack like always - her own little companion that she could whip out and re-read whenever she felt left out, or sad, or just bored - and somehow it had disappeared. No one else could have taken it. No one else would have known what it meant to her. He would. He always seemed to know those things. He stupidly, infuriatingly keen when it came to her, and she hated it.

Furious tears brimmed in her eyes as she practically ran to her junky little car in the parking lot, her fingers clenched in a white-knuckled grip around the strap of her back pack. It was the last straw and she just couldn't take anymore of his tricks. She was constantly worried about what he would do next, about how she could do better to get ahead of him in class, and now he had taken her most prized possession.

Jane wrenched open the driver's side door and practically threw herself in, her arm jerking it almost painfully closed again. She slammed the locks down and then threw her back pack in the backseat, as if doing so would relieve any of the stress and frustration she felt. Sniffling, she wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel, as if she was prepared to drive off and never come back.

Instead, Jane's fury crumpled into despair, and her forehead made contact with the wheel in the same moment that her tears spilled out of her eyes.

Why? Why had he done this? She had never been anything but pleasant with him, until he started torturing her, and even then, she had only ever tried to thwart him. She never confronted him or told on him. She only tried to get around him, to do better, to take the high road.

He was an asshole, a jerk, and he couldn't just leave her al-

A knock on the passenger side window made her nearly jump out of her skin. Jane frantically swiped at her eyes, thinking it was perhaps a security guard or a teacher about to demand why she wasn't in class. She wasn't about to explain why she was in her car crying like a baby when she should be in third period AP Statistics.

Maybe I should, she thought spitefully, so he can get what's been coming to him!

Another round of soft knocks sounded, forcing Jane to rub at her eyes all the harder as she simultaneously reached over to blindly unlock and fling the door open.

"I'm not ditching," she hastily explained without looking at whoever was at the door. "I just, uh, I just needed to get something I-"

"You're crying?" a disbelieving voice cut through her babbling, immediately causing her to freeze in place. Horrified and furious, Jane dropped her hand and turned to look at Loki, who was bending down to peer inside her car, his jacket off, tie loosened, and hair starting to get wet with the drizzle that was beginning to come down.

"You!" she growled, her knuckles turning white as she clenched her fingers into fists. "Give me back my book and then leave me the hell alone!"

Loki blinked, obviously bewildered, only making her want to smack his stupid, handsome face all the more. His tongue darted out to lick his lips, and the way he was watching her reminded her of how some people approached wild animals. "Jane…" he began slowly, those black eyebrows pinching together over those annoyingly pretty eyes. "Are you alright?"

She gasped, outraged at his audacity, and slapped a hand against her steering wheel. "Am I alright? Do I look alright to you? No! I'm not, because of you! You've been tormenting me for nearly a year now and I'm done with it! Give me my book back and get the hell away from me!"

He stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before he apparently made some sort of decision. Speechless with fury, Jane watched as he gracefully slid into her car, his bag resting at his feet, and closed the door behind him. He even had the gall to adjust it, making room for his ridiculously long legs, before he spoke.

"You seem upset."

"Oh my god," she whispered, truly at a loss, as she stared at him. How in the world could one person be so- so impossible?

Loki ran a hand through his damp hair as he looked at her, his expression for once lacking its smug shine. "I didn't take your book, Jane," he told her, making her sputter with outrage. Before she explode on him, he continued, lips pursing. "I didn't." Giving her a withering look at her disbelieving expression, Loki reached between his legs to dig around in his bag, his long, pale fingers pulling out a thick package wrapped in metallic silver paper.

"What the hell is that?" she asked, wary, as he held it out to her. She didn't really trust anything he gave to her, on principle. He scowled at her, obviously offended by her hesitance, and held it closer to her nose.

"It's your birthday on Wednesday, isn't it?" he asked flatly, as if he thought her slow.

Even more flustered, Jane stared at the package - no, the present - as if it might just jump out and bite her. She looked at it for a long moment before glancing at him, wondering just what the hell was going on. When he only continued to stare at her expectantly, she swallowed and very gingerly took the present from him, setting it in her lap.

It was heavy and hard, with no ribbon or name tag; just the shiny wrapping paper, perfectly folded, with no tape visible at all. It was perfect, just like everything he did. Jane looked back at him suspiciously, which he responded to with a heavy sigh.

"Open it, Jane," he said, resting his elbow on the window. "It's just a birthday present."

"That's what worries me," she muttered as she slipped her thumb under the corner of the paper. She gently began to unwrap it, trying not to tear the paper (Erik liked to reuse wrapping paper, after all, so it was ingrained in her now). Every once in a while she would flick her gaze back to Loki, who was watching her with the same intense focus he used in class when she answered a question before him. Unsettled, she slowly peeled the paper back, revealing Exploration Of The Cosmos And Beyond: Fourth Addition in all its glory.

Jane sucked in a sharp breath as her fingers touched the shiny new cover. It was the newest addition, and it wasn't even available for pre-sale yet. Wonderingly, she stared at it. The hows and the whys of it bumped into each other in her mind, but she was too stunned to say any of them. Slowly, she picked it up, intent on inspecting the gift, but stopped as soon as she saw what was beneath it.

"You did take it!" she exclaimed, though the outraged tone had slipped into something that was less angry and more accusing. Her father's book lay beneath the new addition, cover so worn it could barely be recognized, and the binding…

Jane blinked, even more confused. The binding was brand new. When she had seen it last, it was falling apart, and she had to be very careful when she opened it, or else some pages would go flying out.

"I didn't," he denied once more, drawing her attention back to him. He was watching her with an expression she had never seen before. Something… unsettling. Something that had her stomach twisting in strange, unwelcome ways. "You left it in the library on Friday, after lunch. I found it and had it rebound for you, along with the cover pages reglued."

Baffled, Jane looked back down at her lap, staring at both the brand new book in her hands and the precious one on her legs. Why would he do something like that for her? Didn't he hate her?

"I didn't think you would be so upset, though," he admitted, frowning deeply as he watched her. "I would have just returned it right off if I had known you would cry over it. I thought you wouldn't notice if it was gone for a couple days. I apologize for my miscalculation, Jane." Those wide shoulders shrugged, and suddenly he seemed to take up all the space in her small, shabby car. Jane swallowed and licked her lips, looking quickly away from him.

Her cheeks flushed as her fingers curled around her present, her belly filling with what felt uncomfortably like butterflies as he watched her. No one had ever given her a present like this besides her uncle. It was a mystery to her as to why this boy in particular would give her anything at all, though.

"I-" Words caught in her throat embarrassingly, and she felt a hot blush spread from her neck to her ears as she cleared her throat. "Thank you, Loki. This is really… I don't even know what to say."

A beat of silence passed over them, before she felt cool fingers press gently against the soft skin of the crook of her elbow, drawing her eyes back to him. He close, close enough for her to smell the faint scent of his fancy shampoo and to see the little flecks of yellow in his emerald eyes. Stunned, she forgot to breathe.

"I made dinner plans for us on Friday," he told her, his tone matter-of-fact, and if she didn't know better, there might have been a note of genuine pleasure in his voice. "I'll pick you up from your house at four o'clock. Bring a sweater." With that last nugget of advice, he closed the distance between them and sealed his lips over hers.

His kiss was cool and gentle, neither pushy nor unskilled. It was soft, like he was afraid to hurt her, but overwhelming nonetheless. He tasted like mint gum and just a hint of coffee, and his lips were slightly chapped from the cool weather outside, but Jane had never felt anything like it.

By the time he was done, she was thoroughly dazed, her lips parted and her eyes staring at him as if he wasn't really there. He grinned, but she was too lost to really see it. He kissed her once more, quicker this time, and just a bit harder, before he pulled away completely.

"We're going to miss fourth period if we stay any longer," he warned her with mock sternness as he opened his door. Loki swept out of her car as quickly as he came in, and it wasn't until he opened up her door for her, letting in the cool, damp air, that she finally woke from her daze.

"What was that?" she asked, breathless, as she scrambled to get her bag and get out of her car. Jane stared up at him with wide eyes, her heart still pounding and her cheeks flushed.

He smiled at her - a real, genuine smile that was all perfect teeth and crinkly eyes - and she rather thought her legs would melt away into nothing. "It was a kiss, Jane," he told her, pressing his large hand to the small of her back as he began to guide her towards the campus. "Why, would you like another?"


	9. A Night In Oslo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon Prompt: If you're still taking prompts could I request Loki/Jane unplanned pregnancy?

She smelled of vanilla, he recalled with perfect clarity. Like vanilla and cinnamon, sweet but not cloying. It had lingered on his pillow the next morning, long after she had disappeared, and he could still nearly smell it if he tried hard enough. (Which he did embarrassingly often, if he were being honest.)

He could still feel her silky skin beneath his hands, and taste the bourbon on her lips even after all these months later. She haunted him, damn her, and no matter how hard he tried, she wouldn't leave him. The sound of his name coming from that soft mouth of hers drifted in his dreams, and whenever he tried to sleep with another woman, all he could see were those big doe eyes looking up at him with lust and fire.

It was at a hotel bar that they met, in Oslo, Norway. He was there for business, but she never told him why she was there. She had been irritatingly tight-lipped about herself, but at the time he didn't care. She was beautiful and witty, and when he leaned in for a kiss, she met him halfway, her soft lips pressing against his with no fear at all. She was slightly drunk, but he didn't mind. When they stumbled into his suite, she was almost more enthusiastic than he was.

He remembered how she nearly ripped his shirt off, and how her small, soft hands had undone his belt and slid under his trousers. And then he remembered the laugh that erupted from her when he hoisted her up like she weighed nothing and pressed her against the wall, her small, white teeth gleaming in the semi-darkness in a grin. He had never had a woman laugh in the middle of sex, but when she laughed, it was a joyous thing, like she was happy to be there against the wall with his hands cupping her rear, and that was intoxicating.

He never would have suspected it, but that had been one of the best nights of his life. Every second was ingrained in his memory, and for the first time since his youth, he woke up looking forward to seeing her tussled hair and sleepy face on the pillow next to his. Maybe we should go another round, he had thought as he reached over to pull her closer.

But his hand met nothing but rapidly cooling sheets, and she was gone.

It bothered him briefly for a time, but then he quickly got over it. He had business to do, and places to be, he couldn't spare too much time thinking about a one night stand that he probably would have kicked out of bed anyway.

Two weeks later, he began thinking of her again. It was small things at first, just fleeting memories of that night that would occur to him throughout the day. He began to idly wonder if he could find her again. And then he began to not so idly search for her.

He had so little to go on that it was a nearly impossible task, and the more trouble he ran into, the more determined he became. The more he thought of her, the more he craved her. Months passed, and still nothing.

And then- her name. Jane Foster. A breakthrough he had almost given up on, and the one that gave him everything he needed.

With her name, he found everything.

A man with his money and stature could have access to anything he wanted, so finding her was almost effortless when he had her name and description. He learned all he could, ravenous after months of thinking of those few hours they spent together, and even found her current address.

Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. The middle of nowhere. How odd that he would meet her in Norway and then find her again in the middle of the desert.

But that's where he found himself, standing on the doorstep of her apartment, ten months and three days since that night in Oslo. He brought no roses or gifts. Nothing besides himself. He didn't think she would really appreciate roses, anyway. She was a scientist, a woman of learning. He was sure she would appreciate a telescope, or a trip to see the Aurora Borealis far more than any trinket.

Dressed in a fine black suit and emerald tie, Loki sucked in a deep breath, calming the urge he had to just burst through the door to see her again. Instead, he lifted one pale hand and knocked twice on her door.

He heard a muffled curse from within, a small clatter, and then all was quiet for a few seconds. He almost thought she wasn't going to answer it, but then the door was swinging open, revealing the tiny woman who had occupied his thoughts for so long.

Her hair was up in a messy bun, a large purple sweatshirt hung on her frame, and she was barefoot. For a moment, he forgot to breathe.

There she was, standing in the flesh, her expression stunned. She looked tired, and a white rag was slung over one shoulder, but he thought she looked just as beautiful as she did that night in Oslo. They were both too shocked to speak for a long moment, but then her lips parted, a small gasp leaving her, breaking the silence.

"Jane," he greeted, inclining his head, trying to regain some semblance of his composure.

Her mouth worked for a moment, trying to find words to say, before she suddenly seemed to snap back to herself. Her arm jerked back and nearly closed the door on herself, blocking his view of the inside of her apartment. "I- wha- how did you find me?" she asked, her expression nearly panicked.

Loki licked his lips, stepping slightly closer to her when he caught the scent of her sweetness. "I've been looking for you since Oslo," he told her, voice low.

Jane shifted, swallowing, and looked up at him with wide eyes. "Did you- did you get my messages?"

"…Messages?" he asked slowly, taken aback. His eyes narrowed as he watched her blanch, her sharp brows furrowing.

Her eyes dropped from his to his chest, moving around as if she was searching for something. Life seemed to return to her in increments, though her expression was still colored with confusion and shock. "I've been trying to get a hold of you for months," she told him, "I- I tried your office. I tried sending letters. I even tried calling the hotel in Norway to get your phone number."

Loki blinked, stunned. She had tried to find him? Well, he had no idea, obviously. If he had, he would have been on the first plane to New Mexico months ago.

"I have been trying to find you as well," he told her, heart beating faster as he lifted a hand up, slipping it behind her neck to cup the back of her head. She looked for me. She felt the same way. She wanted him too. Loki had never felt such satisfaction. "I have searched endlessly for you, Jane," he murmured, bending to press his lips against hers.

Her hand shot up to stop him, pressing against his chest gently. "No, I- I want to, but if you haven't gotten my messages, I need to talk to you. If you still want to- I mean, if you still feel that way, then sure, but…"

She cleared her throat as he slowly pulled away, though his hand remained tangled in the loose hair that fell from her bun. It felt just as silky as he remembered. "Then we shall talk," he told her, his breath puffing softly against her hair as he tried to control himself.

Jane nodded jerkily and stepped back from him, her eyes down as she opened the door wide enough to let him through. He had a hard time tearing his eyes away from her now that he found her (now that he knew she had tried to find him) but he finally managed to glance around her tiny apartment - the size of which was of no surprise to him, considering the tiny size of her research grant.

It was bit messy, with equipment and miscellaneous papers, but it smelled like her, like vanilla and cinnamon and her. "Can I get you some coffee or something?" she asked, breathless, as she walked past him into the adjoining kitchen. Jane smoothed her hand over her hair nervously, trying to rid herself of flyaway hairs, probably, and began to prepare the coffee before he could respond. He followed her slowly, his long legs silently taking him across the floor and into the kitchen.

"What did you need to speak of, Jane?" he asked, curiosity burning, as he braced himself against the countertop across from her. That was the most pertinent question, but then he also wished to find out who she had spoken to within his company when she tried to reach him. When he found that out, he had a few phone calls to make.

Her hands stilled, one hovering over the button on the machine and the other dipping a spoon in the coffee grounds. Her throat worked as she swallowed, which he watched with rapt attention. "Um," she began slowly, her hands moving again, "I… I wanted to start out by saying I'm sorry for skipping out on you that morning. I mean, I don't know if you wanted me to stay, but I probably should have left a note or something. That was pretty rude."

"You should have," he interjected, tone chiding. "I did want you to stay."

She sucked in a breath, still not looking at him, and pressed the button on the coffee machine. "I wanted to stay, but I knew who you were and… I don't know. I just thought you would kick me out anyway. And I had a meeting in the morning, so…"

"So you left," he finished for her, voice cool. It still stung.

"Yeah," she admitted lamely, her doe eyes glancing at him briefly before she turned and leaned against the counter a bit aways from him. Her head bowed slightly as the coffee machine began to hiss and spit behind her. "I suck at this, wow." Jane ran a hand over her face, her frame tense. "I've thought about what I would say about a thousand times, but now apparently I've forgotten it all. So much for genius, huh?"

Loki raised an eyebrow as he watched her. She was a genius. He had seen that in her file. "Do I really make you so nervous, Jane?" he asked her, amused, as he watched her fidget. "You did not seem so inhibited in Oslo, Doctor."

A flush rose in her cheeks, a lovely pink, and it only made him smile more widely. Jane lifted her head to send him an embarrassed look, though a wry smile twisted the corners of her lips. "One too many drinks, I think, Mister Odinson."

He shrugged, grinning. "Perhaps. But you weren't so drunk as to not be an active participant."

Her blush intensified, but she laughed all the same. The laugh he had heard when they slept together - the one that had haunted his dreams. He could barely stand it. "No, I definitely wasn't," she replied, a note of wistfulness in her tone.

A comfortable silence settled over them, with Jane occasionally daring to look up at him as he stared at her with intensity. He was hungry to look at her, and although he knew he should perhaps tone it down a bit, he found it quite impossible to do so.

Finally gathering herself, Jane straightened and looked him in the eyes, her shoulders squaring as she found her confidence. "Look," she began, "I'm just going to say it, because there's really no other way to do it." Taking a deep breath, she said, "When I came home from Oslo I foun-"

A high, wailing cry suddenly filled the small apartment. Loki tensed, his wide green eyes swinging in the direction of the half-open bedroom door. There was no mistaking that noise.

"You have a child?" he asked, incredulous, as Jane made an exhausted expression and pushed away from the countertop. Her amber eyes swung from the door to him, and those expressive features told him exactly what she hadn't gotten the chance to. His expression fell with his disbelief, with his outright incredulousness, and Jane hurried past him, her face tight. She disappeared into the one bedroom the apartment boasted, his eyes never leaving her, and within a few seconds the wailing stopped.

"Hey, hey," she was whispering when she finally emerged, a tiny creature bundled in a blanket and a cream onesie in her arms, "it's okay, sweet-pea. I was only gone for a couple minutes, no need to scream." Jane glanced up at him as she slowly approached, her expression wary. He stood stock-still there in her kitchen, watching the baby and the mother as if they were an approaching storm.

"I found out I was pregnant about a month after Oslo," she told him, her voice hushed, as she laid the pink-skinned baby on her chest, one hand rubbing her back with the utmost care. "I tried to get a hold of you for months, but I think the people I talked to thought I was crazy, or that I was trying to scam you." She shook her head slightly as the baby gurgled into the fabric of the cloth on her shoulder. "I tried everything I could think of, but nothing worked. So a few months back I stopped trying."

Jane looked up at him warily, swallowing, and then looked back down at her child. "She was born two and a half weeks ago."

It felt like his voice had been stolen from him, a feeling he had very rarely experienced, but when he finally found his tongue again, he said, "You're sure its mine?" His tone was sharper than he intended, and he didn't like seeing the wince he caused on her face, but it was something he had to ask.

"I'm sure," she firmly told him as she adjusted the blanket around the baby. Sighing tiredly, she looked up at him with understanding. "I figured you might say something like that. I mean, how many women would kill to have your kid just for the child support? But I swear, I hadn't had sex with anyone in nearly a year when we met, and I haven't slept with anyone since. You can have her DNA checked, if you want, but it's the truth either way."

Loki stared at the little thing on her chest and shoulder. It was kind of ugly, if he were being honest. All red and squishy, with a bunch of fuzzy black hair on the top of her little round head. Her eyes were closed and puffy, and she was moving her lips a lot, making noises and spit bubbles that dribbled onto Jane's collar.

"I'm not going to go after you for anything," she was explaining quietly, her tone almost resigned. "And you don't have to hang around if you don't want to. I understand that you didn't want this and that you don't know me, so you probably won't. I just- I just didn't feel right about you not at least knowing, so that was why I tried to-"

"What's her name?" he asked, low voice as quiet as a whisper.

Jane paused her speech, her hand drifting up to cup the back of the baby's fuzzy head. "Her name is Beatrice," she told him, a quiet sort of pride in her voice.

Beatrice. Loki tested the name in his mind, rolling it around, comparing it to the little thing in Jane's arms.

"Why did you name her Beatrice?" Loki stepped foreword, peering at both mother and child calculatingly.

The woman blushed, licked her lips, and looked down at her bare toes. "I… I was kind of drunk when we were talking in the bar that night, but I remember most of it. When I was in the hospital, I still hadn't come up with a name, so I tried thinking about you, and about what we talked about. I remembered that you liked Shakespeare, and how we spoke about our favorite characters, and then how you said one of your favorite female characters was Beatrice." She shrugged, as if to dismiss the sweet story, and nudged her cheek against her baby's hair.

"I thought it was a good fit. Beatrice is strong and speaks her mind."

He was quiet for a time, taking everything in. He was quite possibly a father. That thought was more overwhelming than Jane could possibly imagine. Or maybe she could. She had gone through her entire pregnancy alone, with little money, and it sounded like she intended on raising the child on her own too.

That… was not what he wanted. At least, he didn't think so.

He had spent nearly a year searching for Jane. Maybe it was for a reason. Loki breathed deeply, his mind working a mile a minute. It was too much to take in all at once, but he was certain of one thing: he had lost Jane once, and he wasn't about to let that happen again.

"I like the name," he admitted quietly, looking into Jane's eyes with the utmost focus. He paused for a moment, thinking through his words carefully, "…and I think my mother will too."

He wasn't going to lose Jane again, and if that meant being a father, then so be it. His mother really would be thrilled to be a grandmother, and he thought it might not be terrible to be father.

At least, he couldn't screw up any worse than Odin did.


	10. Prolonging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> janesfoster asked: psst you should totally do a lokane prompt based off loki's whole "This day, the next, a hundred years, it's nothing! It's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready. The only woman whose love you prized will be snatched from you." but you know, in regards to loki instead of thor lol

At first, it was like watching a train wreck. It was a tragedy happening right before his eyes, and yet he found himself captivated and unable to look away.

Everyone knew Jane Foster did not belong in Asgard, and no one more keenly than the woman herself. There was no way the relationship between herself and Asgard's beloved prince could work. Not with the weight of the court against her, as well as the suspicions of the people, and the general dislike the king felt for her. Not with her frail human body an ever-present reminder of herhumanness between her and the rest of their world, let alone between her and Thor himself. It could never work out.

And yet they tried.

Thor lobbied and pled, raged and stormed. He found a few friends in the court, those who became tentative acquaintances with Jane, and even managed to win the approval of their queen mother, but still, they were doomed. Everyone could see it. What love they had for each other seemed the palest of shadows in comparison to the burning of the public opinion, and Loki could not help but revel in watching them slowly crack under the pressure of it.

At first, that was the only reason he watched them - her. He liked seeing her shoulders tense when she walked by a group of whispering ladies. He enjoyed hearing her sharply whispered arguments with Thor from just outside the hall. He truly relished the way Jane snapped and snarled when she thought she was alone. Jane was never alone, though. Not really. What was a prince to do, when he was as much of an outcast as she? At least for the moment, she was more interesting than the library.

As time went on, Loki found that perhaps it wasn't just her laughably hopeless situation that attracted him to her. It was also her cleverness. He wouldn't call her a genius (he was a genius, after all), but she was quick, and her enthusiasm for knowledge made up for what she lacked in raw intellect. She spent hours by herself (as far as she knew) in the observatory, poring over parchments and star charts, moving the grand telescope from one galaxy to another. Sometimes books would appear on the tables when she wasn't looking, but she never questioned it. Her thirst for knowledge overrode everything else - even her relationship with Thor.

In some ways, it won her points with the staff and the scholars, but in others it alienated her further from the rest of the court. What was the mortal doing, they whispered, up there all by herself day and night?

Loki had only ever actually spoken to her twice. Once, upon her arrival in Asgard, when they were introduced, and another time when she accidentally stumbled into his private observatory, before he began his constant watch. They weren't exactly riveting conversations, nor were they anything more than a scant minute long when put together, but even with just that, he knew she would be entertaining.

He never anticipated that she would be consuming.

It started out as a game. He liked watching his brother suffer, and by association, her suffer, and then he grew curious about her intelligence. That quickly slid into a desire to pick apart that mortal brain of hers, to understand where that burning desire for the stars and the universe came from. He should have stopped there.

There had to be a reason Thor found her so desirable, after all. Looking back, he should have been more careful. He should have known that she would trap him like she trapped his pseudo-brother. But even if he had known, would it have stopped him? Probably not.

He had enough sense to know that what he was doing would be considered wrong, and that there were other ways to go about seducing a woman (ones that were far less painful for him, certainly), but he couldn't stop himself. He could no more stop watching her than he could stop breathing.

He liked to sit next to her when she read at his favorite table in the library, silently leaning closer to feel the heat of her proximity and smell the perfume of her hair. He enjoyed listening to her soft voice mutter and moan in her sleep. And he truly relished when she began to subconsciously react to his presence, her body relaxing when he stood behind her in the hallways, her teeth easing off her lip when he ghosted a hand over hers on the page of a book. Thor was put off when she was deep in her studies, always distracting her and ruining her concentration, but when he was near, she seemed to focus more acutely, and he felt as though he could teach her everything in the cosmos without ever having to say a word.

When she dozed late at night in the observatory, he uncloaked himself and stroked her hair, his lips pressed lightly against her ear as he whispered sweet nothings (and a few choice things he would do to her soon enough). He even kissed her once, when she was deeply asleep in a plush chair by the fire, which only made him more sure of who she belonged to.

Thor didn't understand her. Thor couldn't love her like she needed. Thor would never take her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, or make her weep with desire in bed. Thor could not understand her passion. Thor could never possess that wild spirit of hers.

He could.

He would.

Jane was his. She could never marry Thor (did she even really want to? He had his doubts), but she could belong to him in ways that she could not even imagine. In return for her love, he would show her the universe. He would give her the stars to wear as jewelry, and make her the queen of a thousand worlds. For her love, he would give her everything he was. He could trust her with that fragile, black thing that was his heart. He knew it. She was the one. The only one. They were the same. They shared a fire within themselves that could never be stamped out. No one else would understand.

One day, she cut herself on a piece of metal in the observatory. It wasn't a dangerous thing, only a thin line across her palm, but it wept her scarlet blood in a way that startled him. Her pretty cream skin did not heal like he expected it to. He watched her curse and press a cloth over the wound, a scowl on her face, and waited for her to pull it away, revealing a healing scar. But it didn't heal. It continued to bleed.

He followed her back to her chambers, where he watched her bandage it with her little toolkit. He watched, and he waited. But it did not heal. Not for weeks, anyway. By the time it was finally scabbing over, he knew that he had vastly miscalculated.

She was mortal. Jane was mortal, and she could not heal herself properly. He had never seen skin close so slowly as that, and it scared him to the bone. How was he supposed to show her the stars when she was so frail? How could he spend a lifetime watching her smile and snarl and moan if her body could not take care of itself?

Jane would die, he realized. She would die and leave him. Just like everyone else. She would leave him with nothing in the blink of an eye. The only woman he could ever love would disappear from this world like she had never even existed

He could not allow that.

He would have her, body, mind, and soul until the end of his life, and nothing less than that. He was owed that, at least, for all the crimes against him.

Loki left the apple for her on top of her stack of books in the observatory, knowing she had not had supper that night. It looked ordinary enough and she was blind and deaf to magic (for now). She did not know what she was biting into as she read over another star chart that night.

Her teeth breaking the skin of the fruit rang in his mind like wedding bells, and for the first time, he unveiled himself.

"I don't think we've ever had a proper conversation before, Lady Jane," he murmured from the chair beside her, voice low with deep satisfaction, "I'd like to rectify that."


	11. Head Shrinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bluepixystyx asked: Hello, can you please write Lokane prompts 20 (dysfunctional relationship au)and/or 28 (knocking on the wrong door au). Thank you very much!

"So," Doctor Worton asked, setting the tip of her fountain pen on the blank page of her notepad, "why are we here today?"

Two young adults sat before her, both nearly twenty. One was tall and dark-haired, his long, lithe limbs stretched out around him in a way that made his half of the couch seem more like a throne than anything else. Hw wore a crisp white button down, slacks, and some very expensive leather shoes. The other was a coffee-haired girl with big, whisky-colored eyes and a deep scowl, her much more petite body nearly squashed into the armrest. She wore what looked like an old men's sweatshirt, jeans, and a pair of faded green Converse; nearly the polar opposite of the man on the other side of the couch. Her arms were crossed over her stomach, and she looked like all she wanted to do was throw herself out of the floor-to-ceiling windows in her office.

The two shared a look before answering, one that spoke of years of companionship between them, even if the girl looked like she wanted to rip the boy's head off, and the boy looked as though he was in the midst of a grand old game. It was he who answered, turning his head lazily back in the direction of the psychologist even as those piercing green eyes remained cool.

"We're here because my dearest mother finally decided she could no longer withstand Jane's screaming," he explained in that lilting, British accent, all charming baritone and cheeky smile full of teeth.

Jane squawked indignantly at the comment, her cheeks flushing with her fury as she watched him. "I wouldn't be screaming if you could just keep to yourself for five minutes!" Huffing angrily, she turned her gaze on the older woman who sat across from them. "We're really here because he has been driving me up the wall since the moment I got back from school. I can't find any peace and quiet, my stuff is always being stolen, he is constantly pulling pranks on me, and just- just being mean!"

Doctor Worton sat back a bit in her chair, her hand lifting to adjust her glass on the bridge of her nose as she watched the two people on the couch stare one another down. They looked like they could be brother and sister, by the way they bickered, but there was something slightly… off about the whole arrangement.

"Well, it does sound like we have a bit of a problem to get through," she replied evenly as she scribbled a note on her pad without looking. Her keen eyes shifted from one to the other, trying to figure out what was causing the obvious tension between them. "But before we get into that, I would like to hear about your family life. I understand that you were adopted, Jane."

The young woman looked away from her adversary and nodded, shrinking back into her cushion. "My parents passed away when I was eight," she explained, her tone tempered into something solemn. "Odin and Frigga were my godparents, and since my Uncle Erik couldn't take me, they did."

"She was never legally adopted, though," Loki added, resting his elbow on the armrest. His tone was dry, almost mocking, and the doctor arched an eyebrow in response to it. "That was me."

"But either way, you have been living with them since your parents passed away, correct?" she asked, neatly ignoring the goading smile the boy sent her. He obviously needed counseling all for himself, but right now she was there to get to the bottom of the animosity between them.

Jane nodded again, her fingers twining together in her lap. "Yes. They've been my family for a long time." Her big brown eyes flicked to Loki, who was staring at his cuticles in boredom rather than paying attention. Her lips pursed, and one didn't have to be a psychologist to see the pain that flickered in her eyes when he didn't even bother to look at her.

"I take it this… conflict is a new development, then."

"Yeah," Jane admits, her brows scrunching together as she leaned forward. "I mean, we've always bickered, but he's been…" She waved her hand helplessly in the direction of her foster brother, whose eyes had immediately focused on her when she was no longer looking at him. His face was placid, but Doctor Worton did not miss the way his right leg slowly leaned against hers, their knees touching. Jane didn't seem to notice, but some part of her relaxed at the contact, the tense line of her shoulders softening minutely.

Her pen flew across the page of her notebook.

"I am no different than I've always been, Jane," Loki said, clicking his tongue in a scolding way. "But either way, I will not be addressing our personal matters in front of a complete stranger, doctorate or no."

The psychologist looked over the rim of her glasses at him, weigh the cold look in his eyes with the way he seemed to be nearly squashing Jane out of sight. "I'm only here to help," she explained kindly, resting her pen on her notepad. "We're just here to talk about things, and figure out where this animosity is coming from, Loki."

"I have no animosity towards Jane," he told her briskly, those sharp green eyes of his focused solely on her. "I never have."

Getting to the meat of it now, I guess, she thought, squaring her shoulders.

"Then why have you been acting this way with her, Loki? From what your mother tells me, it would seem like you are deliberately torturing her."

Loki's lips twitched upward, but the expression was not a smile. It was mocking, and she was a bit unsettled to feel the tiny hairs on her arms prickle at the sight of all those perfect, square teeth. "I don't have to explain anything to you," he told her, leaning back into the couch. His broad shoulder pressed against Jane's delicate one, fusing them together nearly from knee to shoulder.

Doctor Worton's eyes narrowed at the sight.

"The two of you seem close," she noted evenly. Very close. Her speciality was siblings, and something was not… right, about these two. Perhaps it was the fact that Jane was technically not his sister, or maybe it was all the change with college and whatnot, but even that didn't seem right. There was something else there that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"We've been best friends since we were little," Jane replied, leaning slightly to her left, into Loki. "We just don't see each other as much as we used to, I guess. I mean, we both go to Harvard, but he's in Business School and I'm in Astrophysics. Our schedules don't exactly overlap that much."

The psychologist nodded, sensing that perhaps they were getting to the root of the problem now. She watched as a muscle in Loki's jaw ticked when she explained about their schedules, and she smelled an opening. "Tell me," she casually began, "if you haven't been spending as much time together lately, who have you been with? College is a time for new friends and relationships, after all."

His jaw ticked again.

"Well, I've made a couple friends," Jane admitted, some enthusiasm returning to her features. "Darcy is my roommate, and we get along really well. I don't have a lot of classes with her, but we hang out a lot."

No jaw tick. Interesting.

"What about romantic relationships?" she prodded gently. "Have you been out on any dates?"

A flush rose in Jane's cheeks and a nervous laugh escaped her as she ran her fingers through her hair. Beside her, Loki had gone completely still.

"Yeah, I guess," she admitted, scratching her nose. "I met this guy in my BioChem class named Don. We were going out until just this summer. We're… on break now." Doctor Worton watched as Jane fidgeted and the tick in Loki's jaw return with a vengeance.

She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Loki beat her to it. "It must have been hard to see him," he quipped with mock sympathy, "what with your busy schedule and all that."

Jane went silent for a moment, her expression souring. Obviously, this was an old argument, and one that had never been resolved. The psychologist glanced between the two, a niggling suspicion beginning to form in the back of her mind.

"Loki," she said, "I'm getting the feeling that perhaps you're feeling a bit neglected by Jane now that she's dating. Is that perhaps the source of tension you feel with your sister or-"

"She is not my sister!" Jane jumped in surprise, but she was too experienced to outwardly react to the snarl. On the inside, she was truly startled by the sudden show of emotion. Loki's fingers curled into a fist as he fumed, his expression cooling into something like quiet rage as he watched her.

"Doctor Worton," he began, voice low and dangerous, "I thought you were paying attention earlier. Jane is not my sister. She was never adopted. She never took my last name. She is in no way related to me."

Not to "us". "Me." That, more than anything else, told her what she had begun to suspect was probably true.

"Furthermore," he continued, this time looking at Jane instead. His voice was less harsh this time. More scolding. "I do not appreciate the suggestion that Jane and I cannot manage this by ourselves. It's always been the two of us. We don't need anyone else to fix us."

Jane was looking up at Loki with wide eyes, her lips slightly parted as she absorbed whatever subtext Loki had layered into his little speech. "You should not have abandoned me for Don, Jane," he told her, scowling deeply. "He wasn't worth your time, and I'm offended that you don't wish to spend time with me anymore. If the only way to get your attention is to have you screaming at me, then so be it."

Two things became abundantly clear to Doctor Worton then: one, that it was not familial strain that caused the tension between them, and two, that Frigga had a much bigger situation on her hands than two squabbling young adults.

Loki was right. They weren't siblings.

"You started it," Jane accused indignantly, "with Veronica. The first month of school, when I didn't know anyone, you go out with the first floozy you find and throw her in my face every five minutes. How do you think that made me feel?"

They weren't even like cousins.

"So you hook up with Donald?" Loki asked, cool as a cucumber. "How soon did you let him in your dorm room, I wonder. Soon enough to forget all about me, about your best friend."

They were lovers.

Stunned by the realization, Doctor Worton could only sit back and watch as the two began to bicker in earnest, throwing jabs and accusations back and forth like a seasoned married couple. The whole time, their thighs never strayed from where they were pressed against each other, and once Loki even hooked his finger under her chin and turned her face back to his, as if he had done it a thousand times before.

By the looks of it, they didn't really know what they were doing. She doubted they had even acknowledged whatever feelings they had for one another, but they were there. In force.

I'm not a couple's counselor, she thought, dazed. Frigga would need a whole team of psychologists to sort that mess out.

But she doubted even the most skilled team would be able to stop what was happening from reaching its inevitable conclusion. They were in too deep, and the more she watched them, she more she could almost feel the sexual tension and jealousy pouring from them.

She felt like she was witnessing a dam breaking, and neither hell nor high water could save them.

At least they aren't related?


	12. The Sugar Cafe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> audreyii-ficasked:I would like #6 (meeting at a coffee shop au). Because it is the MOST CLASSIC CLICHÉ OF CLASSIC CLICHÉS EVER and I'm not sure Lokane actually has one. Also, your brilliance intimidates me.

Jane had a routine.

Every day, she did the same thing. Having a very specific routine had saved her from falling into the trap of procrastination, gave her a sense of comfort, and helped keep her focused on what she needed to do. Darcy thought she was crazy, but she didn't care. She couldn't afford to get behind on her assignments and risk losing her scholarship, and when her routine was disrupted, it usually meant disaster for her schoolwork.

Donald had disrupted her routine, and that had ended terribly. She wasn't about to make that mistake again. Once she had her doctorate, she could relax a bit, but not until then. Relaxing was for slackers, and slackers didn't get doctorates.

Most of her routine included lab work, library time, and assignments, but a crucial part of her day involved one particular coffee shop.

It was a nice place down the street from her tiny apartment, tucked between a Bloomingdales and a ritzy law office that specialized in high profile divorces, and its name was the Sugar Cafe. Decked out in the hippest warehouse-chic style, it boasted a massive drip coffeemaker, a barista named Kim who never cracked a smile, and a grilled goat cheese sandwich that was to die for. Jane was particularly fond of the stainless steel tables that were tucked into little nooks with easy to reach outlets, along with their free Wi-Fi, and the fact that she got a former-employee discount.

They played unobtrusive indie music, were never really overwhelmingly busy like a Starbucks, and actually made a decent cup of joe. No one bothered her there, and Kim even knew to have her regular espresso and sandwich with fruit on the side waiting for her when she arrived. It didn't have any Darcy blasting pop songs like in her apartment, no uncomfortable chairs like in the library, and no one ever pestered her like in the Sciences Building at school.

It was her place.

Everyday from nine AM to noon, she sat at her specific table in the far left corner of the cafe, drinking her espresso, munching on her sandwich, and writing her thesis. It was her quiet time. Nothing could disturb that.

…Except, of course, someone having the audacity to try and encroach on her space.

On a regular Thursday morning, Jane was prepared for another full day of slogging through data, her usual leather bag slung over her shoulder, bits of paper and the corner of her laptop peeking out from under the flap. She was tired from staying up late rewriting a portion of her thesis (that she would no doubt rewrite again that morning), but there was nothing unusual about that. It was dark and rainy that morning, which didn't exactly help her mood much, but she was certain that her espresso would have her bouncing back into productivity in no time, just as it always did.

Pushing open the glass door of the cafe, Jane stepped inside with a grateful sigh. The doctoral candidate shook off her hood and adjusted the strap of her back on her shoulder, the smell of coffee and fresh pastries filling her with the sense of peace she always got when she could work quietly by herself. Her grumpy expression shifting into something more relaxed, and a little bit of the tenseness bled out of her shoulders.

This was her place, and it was time to get her coffee and get to work.

"Jane," Kim called from behind the counter, her mousy brown hair pulled up in a messy ponytail and one strap of her black tank top slipping down over one shoulder. The older woman waved her over, which was a bit out of the ordinary. Usually Karl brought out her sandwich when he saw her walk in. But perhaps Karl had taken the day off, and Kim was waving her over to give her her food. Shrugging, Jane walked over to the counter, her red rain boots squeaking slightly on the polished concrete floor, leaving tiny puddles of rainwater in their wake.

"Hey Kim," she greeted, running a hand through her hair to smooth out the frizzies caused by her hood, "got my coffee ready? I really need it this morning."

"Well, not exactly," she replied, frowning a bit more deeply than usual. Jane blinked, her eyebrows drawing closer together over her eyes. That was reallyunusual.

"Oh, well, that's fine. Busy this morning?" It wasn't the first time Kim had been too busy with an early rush to put in her order before she got there, but by the way she was looking at Jane, she had a feeling that wasn't the reason.

The barista shook her head. "No, I'll make it for you in a second, I just wanted to warn you that someone took your table."

"What?" she asked, aghast. Jane quickly swiveled around, her eyes immediately zeroing in on her beloved table, tucked away in the far left corner of the cafe. Her eyes widened to a nearly impossible size when she saw who exactly had invaded her space.

All dark hair and a fine, pressed suit, Loki Odinson sat at her table, as casual as you please. A cup of something sat before him, along with what looked like half of her favorite sandwich and a small black notebook. He was checking his phone, one forearm braced on the steel tabletop, and both incredibly long legs spread out from his chair, those polished leather shoes winking in the low light. She recognized him from all the pictures splashed on the headlines, and for a moment she was awestruck by being in the same room as someone so famous and powerful.

That lasted for about the time it took for him to lift the sandwich to his lips and take a bite of it.

"He took my table," she whispered in quiet outrage as she watched him chew. He took her table and he was eating the sandwich she was supposed to have gotten. He had disrupted her routine. She didn't care who he was, no one was allowed to get away with that.

"Can you kick him out?" she demanded, turning around to face the scowling Kim.

The woman snorted in disbelief and leaned one arm on the countertop. "Yeah, Jane, let me get right on kicking a billionaire out of the cafe because he sat at your table."

"I always sit there!" she hissed in a hushed whisper, heat rising to her cheeks. "I need to sit there! Why didn't you just point him to another table or something when he came in?"

Kim rolled her eyes at her theatrics and pushed away from the counter. "No, I couldn't. He was allowed to sit wherever he wanted. It was just bad luck that he wanted to sit at your usual table." She sent Jane a dry look. "Sitting somewhere else for a day won't kill you, Jane."

Jane heartily disagreed. She always sat at that table for a few reasons: the light was the brightest in the cafe, there were four outlets to use at that specific table and nowhere else, and it was her fucking table. The chair must have been uncomfortable for him, she thought mutinously, what with it being shaped like her ass.

Jane narrowed her eyes at Kim, knowing that the woman really couldn't do anything about where the (rumored deranged) billionaire was sitting. Putting him somewhere else might very well ruin her business if he took offense to it, so Jane would just have to get her table back herself. Setting her jaw, the petite woman straightened and unzipped her coat, preparing for battle.

Before Kim could protest, she had spun on the heel of her cherry-red boots and was striding toward Loki's table, one hand fisted over the strap of her bag and the other swinging freely by her side, a stony, determined look on her face. She looked like she was going to war, and she certainly felt like it. Jane didn't care that this man could probably destroy her life with a phone call. She wanted her goddamn table back.

He didn't seem to notice the squeak of her boots until she was nearly two feet away from him, standing rigidly over him with her eyebrows drawn tightly over her whiskey-brown eyes. She was hardly tall, but it seemed more than a little unfair to her that even when sitting, he was almost her height. The businessman paused in scrolling through his phone when her shadow crossed over it, lifted his eyes up, flicked them in her direction, and then promptly went right back to scrolling.

"I don't do autographs," he drawled, opening up a text message that could have been from Tony Stark for all she knew.

Jane's jaw clenched as she ground her teeth together, her fingers tightly contracting around the strap of her bag as she tried to calm herself down. She was greatly annoyed by this disruption of her routine, and his uppity attitude and dismissal of her made it even worse. Fighting to unlock her jaw, Jane cleared her throat, trying to get his attention again.

He continued to ignore her.

"Excuse me," she said, tone icy but polite. It was like he didn't even hear her. That dexterous thumb flew over the keyboard, his eyes staring unblinking at the screen. Feeling downright angry now, Jane huffed a sharp breath out of her nose and decided to just plunge in. "Look, I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but that's my table. I would really appreciate it if you would pick somewhere else to sit." After a a glance down at said table, she added, "Or, since it looks like you're almost done, you could just leave."

The thumb that had been swiping across the keyboard of his phone stilled. "Pardon?" he intoned slowly, voice low. He finally turned his attention to her, giving her the full force of those piercing green eyes. Jane planted a hand on the table, claiming her territory, and leaned slightly closer, deliberately not acknowledging the fact that he was extremely attractive and that he smelled like freshly roasted coffee and some expensive cologne that made her mouth water.

"This is my table," she stated simply, like he was slow on the uptake, "and I need to get to work. I have four pages of my thesis I need to rewrite before noon today, and to do that, I have to sit right here." She patted the tabletop once for emphasis.

Loki arched one dark brow incredulously, the arm holding his phone slowly lowering to his lap. He had thin, sculpted lips, and they parted slightly as he considered her. Jane was well aware of the fact that he probably thought she was a bit unhinged, but she didn't care. She hadn't had her coffee or started on her work because of him, and she would be damned if he got away with it.

She rather expected him to say something like, "do you even know who I am?" but instead he merely watched her for a long moment, those eyes dragging slowly from the top of her head to the toes of her shiny red rain boots. In all likelihood, her jeans, boots, worn raincoat, and flannel shirt didn't exactly appeal to him, but Jane couldn't bring herself to care. He could judge her all he wanted if he would only just get out of her damn seat.

"There are plenty of other tables to sit at," he told her, once more looking into her eyes. "I would suggest sitting at one of them, not wasting your time pestering me about this particular table."

Jane shook her head, putting a bit more of her weight on the table. "No, see, this is my table. I sit every day from nine to noon, working on my thesis. It is the only table with the amount of outlets I need, the best lighting to read by, and the most comfortable chair. I have to do my work there."

He was looking at her like she had lost her mind. Jane let out a gusty sigh of annoyance and gestured sharply to his mostly empty coffee cup and sandwich. "Look, you're basically done! You don't even need to be here any longer. Couldn't you just give up the table?"

"No," he retorted flatly, his pretty green eyes never straying from her face as he reached down, lifted his coffee to his lips, and took a long sip.

Her annoyance heightened considerably, Jane narrowed her eyes at him. "Why not?" she ground out through gritted teeth.

Loki watched her from over the rim of his cup, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly with a smile. It was a smile that let her know exactly what he was going to say half a second before he actually said it. "Because I don't want to."

Annoyance boiling over, Jane made an inarticulate noise of frustration and slapped her hand on the tabletop. "I cannot believe this," she growled, "all I'm asking for is for you to just move! Because of this, my whole day is going to be screwed up! Do you know how much work I have to get done today to keep from being swallowed whole?" She made another noise and threw up her hands, her eyes closing as she tried to rein in her temper a bit.

All the while, Loki watched her as he sipped his coffee, his green eyes shining in the light of the overhead lamp. He seemed dreadfully amused by the whole situation, and that only made Jane want to smack him all the more.

"Oh my god, what do I have to do to get you to leave?" she finally demanded, placing her hands on her hips as she glared at him. At this point she would kiss the parking meter that all the dogs peed on just to get him out of her spot.

He seemed to ponder her question for a long moment, the cup finally lowering back onto the table with deliberate slowness. He licked his lips (something Jane fought to ignore) and placed one long-fingered hand on the table, his sleek phone under his palm. "That's a dangerous thing to ask me," he told her, smiling with all of his perfectly straight, square teeth.

"I don't care," she hotly replied, leveling him with a glare that could melt glaciers.

A laugh bubbled out of him at that, low and raspy, and Jane felt her stomach twist into disturbingly familiar knots at the sound. Weren't men in romance novels the only ones allowed to make your toes curl like that?

"Fine, then," he said, grinning wildly at her, "I require three things to vacate this particular seat." Holding up his hand, he began to tick them off one by one. "One, I would like to know your name. This is the first time I've ever been assailed in public by a woman I don't know, so I think I'm entitled to at least that for the abuse I've suffered. Second, I want your phone number, because I fully intend on pestering you just as mercilessly as you have pestered me - though for entirely different reasons. And thirdly…" He paused there, obviously enjoying the look of plain disbelief her face quite a lot more than he should. When he got his fill of her shock, he continued, drawing out the sentence slowly, with obvious relish.

"Thirdly,"those pretty eyes shined with amusement now, "I ask that you allow me to buy you a cup of coffee."

Jane sputtered and dropped her hands from her hips. "Um, no," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "Not in a million years." She didn't care that he had more money than she could possibly ever have in her lifetime, or that he was gorgeous. He had been uppity with her when all she wanted was to sit in her usual spot. Plus, that smile of his was a little unsettling.

His grin only widened at her refusal. Loki leaned back further into (her) seat, those long limbs spreading out around him like he was lounging on a throne, and watched her with eyes that nearly twinkled with mischief. "Then you aren't getting your precious table," he quipped, the epitome of casual. "So sorry."

He watched as Jane battled herself, her desire to get her table back and her disgust with his general attitude obviously warring in her mind. She shifted from one foot to another, her jaw working as she fought over which one was more important, before she finally let out loud huff. Crossing her arms, she sent him a baleful glare.

"My name is Jane Foster," she ground out as quickly as she could, her foot tapping impatiently, "my number is nine five one, six zero eight, two four, eight six. Good luck remembering that because I'm only saying it once. Now you can go buy the coffee and leave me to my work."

There, she thought, feeling a little smug. He definitely won't remember the number, and he'll be gone soon. She could finally have her table back.

Loki smirked up at her before glancing down at the table, at the hand that had been previously covering his phone. Jane looked as well, just in time to see him entering the last digit of her number into his contacts with that ridiculously fast thumb of his. Her stomach seemed to sink somewhere around her knees when she saw him hit save.

"Now then," he announced, slowly standing up from his seat, "how do you take your coffee, Miss Foster?"


	13. Skinny Dipping IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked: lokane: thunderstorm :)

It was like trying to pull a sweet treat from a child's mouth - by which he meant, utterly, infuriatingly difficult.

Jane - who could go on and on about her science for hours, who could speak of the political situation of her planet for equally long, who had scolded him for a solid twenty minutes once simply because he touched one of her instruments incorrectly - was actually rather adept at keeping her mouth tightly shut when he really needed to know something.

Well, he didn't need to know, but he really, really wanted to.

For days after their encounter in the library, Loki allowed her very little peace. He was everywhere she went, no matter what time she was up or how carefully she tried to plan around him. He dedicated every waking moment to pestering her until she finally cracked. Usually he just received the regular combination of glares, mutters, blushes, and scolding, which were enjoyable in and of themselves, but he was still unsatisfied.

Jane had had a dream about him (them), and it was so tantalizing, so distracting, that she could hardly bear to look at him. He desperately needed to know what he had done in that dream of hers to make her so frazzled, because he was entirely sure that what he could do in reality was far, far better. He intended to show her that, of course, but first he needed to know exactly what they had done together in her mind.

He tried everything to get her to loosen her lips - arguing, the silent treatment, gifts, pleading (that had nearly killed him), persuasion, and even transforming himself into a woman so she might feel more comfortable divulging her secrets. Nothing worked. Her lips were sealed so tightly he doubted even Thor could pry them open with all his strength. The little mortal was completely intent on keeping everything they did together in her dream to herself until the day she died, and that simply could not be allowed.

He was beginning to lose the little patience he had when he finally got the golden opportunity he had been waiting for.

Jane had revealed to him some months ago that she disliked thunder storms, which he had laughed at because she obviously would never be too fond of Thor, then. At the time he had brushed off her little fear as nothing but the remnant of childhood, but that was before he actually saw it in action. During one such storm, Jane had burst into his chambers and, without a word, proceeded to pilfer his liquor cabinet. It was the only way she could get through it, she had told him as she inspected a bottle of Asgardian whiskey, her body shaking like a leaf each time the thunder clapped.

She had gotten good and drunk that night, telling him rambling stories about her friend Darcy and something called "her college years". He got slightly buzzed as well, after drinking significantly more than she could ever withstand, and they both ended up draped over his couches, snoring into the cushions, until well into the morning.

He knew Jane had been willing to tell him anything he asked that night, and so Loki hatched a plan. Well, it wasn't so much of a plan as it was a clever scheme, but he failed to see the difference.

All it took was the disappearance of Thor's favorite breakfast food, a bad bout in the practice arena, and every single one of Thor's casks of mead mysteriously disappearing for him to set off the largest thunderstorm in years directly over Jane's head. It was a bit mean, but he was desperate, and if he had to rattle Jane a bit to get what he wanted, then so be it.

In the end, it took six lightning strikes for Jane to come scurrying through his doors once more, her tiny body shaking under the blanket she had draped over herself. Her bottom lip had been worried raw, making it rosy red and puffy, and she nearly hurt herself when she kicked his door shut behind her. Loki watched her enter from his parlor, which had already been set up for the evening. He had laid spare blankets on the couch, extra pillows on the floor, built a roaring fire in the hearth, and sat just before it with a book in one hand and a bottle of Asgard's finest (and strongest) bourbon in the other.

He had to tamp down his giddiness when he watched her heave a sigh of relief and scuttle around the couch to plop on the floor across from him, lest he give away the game. She would figure it out when she woke up the next morning, no doubt, but for now he had to look sympathetic (which he was, to an extent), not excited.

The prince sent the distressed woman a small smile, the book snapping shut in his hand. "I assumed you would be along in short order when I heard the thunder," he told her, setting the tome down beside him.

Looking harried, Jane replied, "Why is thunder so loud?"

"Well, dearest Jane, that would be because-"

"I know why thunder is loud," she cut in, glaring at his cheeky smile, "that was a rhetorical question. Now pass me the bottle." One of her dainty, fragile hands peeked out from under the blanket she had thrown around herself just as another boom rocked the skies above them, making her wince and grind her teeth. She wiggled her fingers urgently at him, demanding the substance that would make her good and delirious for the next several hours.

Loki handed the spirit to her without complaint, his wide shoulders shrugging innocently, like that wasn't exactly what he wanted. "Do be careful, Jane," he warned her as she pulled the stopper out and lifted it to her lips, "that's fine Asgardian bourbon you're drinking. It could knock you flat."

It would knock her flat, if he had his way. But not before he got the answers to his questions.

Jane sent him a withering look before she proceeded to take a large swig of the alcohol, her pretty features screwing up as it traced a burning path into her belly. Loki watched her with a placid expression as he leaned back into one of the cushions he had placed on the floor. He rather liked how she looked in the light of the fire, with those long lashes lit with gold and the brown of her eyes melting into amber.

Another clap of thunder reverberated above them, and Loki watched with amusement as Jane downed another swallow of the potent drink. He could already see a flush rising in her cheeks, but he anticipated it would take one or two more gulps before she would spill her secrets to him.

He lifted a hand and gestured for the bottle, intending to at least take a sip. It took far more to get him drunk than it took Jane, so it wouldn't endanger his mission at all. When she reluctantly handed it over, the prince took a small sip, tasting the liquid fire that Asgard so famous for. "Did you get any work done today?" he asked casually as he watched Jane collapse back into the pillows, her body slightly less tense than before.

"A bit," she sighed out, loosening the blanket around her shoulders as the heat of the fire began to soak in. "Not as much as I would like, though. A frustrating number of your astronomical texts aren't translatable."

Loki shrugged, passing her the bottle. "I told you, you should just come to me when you can't translate something. I would happily do it for you."

Swallowing another mouthful of alcohol, Jane raised her eyebrows at him. "Honestly, I was surprised you weren't with me. You've been stuck to me like an annoying barnacle for the past two weeks."

"Oh, it sounds like you missed me," he teased, grinning at the woman.

She rolled her eyes, lifting the bottle to her lips as the storm raged on over them. "I only like having you around when you aren't being annoying," she dryly retorted, "which is very rare."

Chuckling, Loki lifted one knee and rested his wrist on it, casually watching as she got herself good and drunk before him. "Mm, some would say you are just a bit too defensive on that subject," he drawled, grinning widely. "I, for one, believe you like me far more than you are willing to admit."

Jane made a face around the lip of the bottle, an obvious denial of his teasing, but whether it was the alcohol, the fire, or her feelings causing it, she could not stop the flush that made her cheeks a deep pink. She muttered something that was lost in a thunderclap, but he was fairly certain it ran along the lines of "shut the hell up". His grin widened.

The bourbon was beginning to hit her, he could see, and now was the time for him to begin chipping at those tight lips of hers. "You can't pretend you don't like me," he needled in a lilting, pleased tone. "I know you do."

"I never said I didn't like you," she retorted hotly, her eyes beginning to glaze over a bit. She was a remarkably lucid drunk, he had found, but also quiet a lightweight. Jane could speak without a slur well enough, but a few sips was all it took for her to start jabbering on about whatever struck her fancy. The woman in question set the bottle down beside her thigh, her fingers resting on the neck loosely. "I just don't like it when you annoy me," she added, almost a whine, as she rolled her shoulders in a stretch.

Loki's green eyes followed the line of her neck as she stretched, noting how she obviously was feeling far less tense now that she had nearly a quarter of the bottle in her. As his fingers drummed on his knee, the prince made a soft humming noise and tilted his head to one side. "If you liked me so much," he reasoned, green eyes glittering in the firelight, "you wouldn't have avoided me so cruelly a few weeks before."

The scientist shrugged, eyeing the bottle in her loose grasp speculatively. "Nah," she replied, deciding against another swig, "I avoided you because I like you. Obviously."

He had to keep himself from grinning then, his stomach twisting in that ever-so-pleasurable way it did when he was getting close to a delicious secret. "Please, Jane," he sighed out dramatically, "I'm offended that a dream would upset you so much as to ignore me for a week. It must have been truly horrifying."

Jane slowly shook her head, the thunder overhead going completely ignored as she leaned her head back into the pillows and closed her eyes. That was proof enough that she had had more than enough alcohol to inhibit her secret-keeping. She seemed tired, but he knew that mouth of hers would not let her sleep just yet. "No," she replied, just as he anticipated, "no, it wasn't that. I was just really embarrassed. Have you ever had a sex dream about a friend? It's humiliating. I couldn't even look you in the eye afterward."

He hummed, unobtrusively shifting closer to her on the plush rug. "Would it make it any less humiliating if I told you I dreamt of you, once?" he offered kindly as his deft fingers gently pulled the bottle from her grasp. It was a lie, because he had never dreamed of sleeping with her, but he rather thought his fantasies counted for something.

Jane opened one eye to give him a confused look, her plump mouth pursing as if she was trying to weigh whether he was telling the truth or not. A fair thing to ask, he allowed.

"You did?" she asked skeptically, her words coming out just slightly slower than usual. "What… what did we do in it?"

Loki clucked his tongue chidingly, this time not bothering to be subtle as he moved over to her large cushions, making himself comfortable beside her. He didn't plan on doing anything with her, because he wasn't about to use alcohol to seduce a woman, but he had a feeling that his proximity would help loosen her tongue a bit on the subject of her imaginings now that she was drunk.

"Why should I tell you?" he asked her gently, as if he were wounded by the suggestion. "If you will not share your dream with me, and force me to assume the worst about it, what reason do I have to share mine with you?"

Jane frowned, a flicker of suspicion in her eyes. If she were sober, she would have seen right through his thin ploy, but since she was a mortal drinking Asgardian alcohol, that flicker of suspicion lasted but a second before the placid look returned. She seemed to weigh the merits of spilling her secrets against hearing his for a long moment, her doe eyes closing once again. "It'll make it weird between us, though," she explained weakly, even as she sighed and sagged bonelessly against him, her head resting on his shoulder.

"Oh, hush, Jane," he replied, grinning to himself. "It won't make it 'weird'. They're just dreams, right? If they aren't visions, then they are utterly harmless."

The woman resting on him hummed. "You smell really good," she told him off-handedly, her tone almost disgruntled. "You didn't smell in my dream."

"I didn't?" he asked, amused, as he stared down at her chestnut brown hair.

"No," she told him, "you didn't. There weren't any smells, I don't think. Dreams don't have smells."

"If I didn't smell, what else do you remember?" he coaxed, slipping his arm between her back and the pillow to bring her closer. She was limp as a noodle against him, which was quite a change from how she had avoided every chance of physical contact between them since she had her little dream.

"I was in a maze," she slowly began, some reluctance creeping back into her voice. Even completely drunk, she had some awareness of the fact that revealing this to him was probably not the best idea - and he could not have that. Loki made a comforting sound in his chest and rubbed his thumb against her arm.

"Go on," he murmured, touching his chin to her hair. "Tell me the whole story, Jane. No need to be embarrassed. It's just a dream."

She was quiet for a time, long enough for him to begin to fear she had fallen asleep against him. But when she did eventually speak, he felt his heart jump into his throat. "It was in the maze, and I was looking for you. One of those fancy hedge mazes they have in castles. I could here your voice, and you kept telling me to come find you, but I was never able to do it. I wanted to give up, but you told me to run and find you. I had to find you, so I started running."

He listened with rapt attention, hardly breathing, his hand stilling on her shoulder. He was finally hearing it, and was determined not to miss a word - not even to breathe.

"I didn't think I would find you," Jane continued, sounding slightly annoyed, "because you always hid yourself from me. But this time, when I turned a corner, your arm shot out and you caught me." There, she trailed off, nearly killing him with suspense. He swallowed thickly, knowing exactly where this dream was headed, and nudged her gently, trying to get her to continue.

Jane started as if she had been dozing, but suddenly continued in an almost surly way. "Well, after that, it went how you probably can guess with that big god brain of yours."

"No, no, no, Jane," he chided her, tilting his head slightly down to peer into her face. Her eyes were closed and a small frown marred her lips, telling him that she wasn't quite so drunk as to continue without some goading. "I asked to hear it all, didn't I?" he asked, prodding her bicep. "You won't hear my dream unless you tell me everything."

"It was just a stupid dream," she grumbled, turning her head slightly to press her cheek more firmly in his shoulder, her dark hair sliding back from behind her ear to cover her expression. "Not even important."

"It is important," he insisted, frowning down at her. "I was a participant in the dream, wasn't I? I think I deserve to know."

"You weren't just a participant," she told him, nearly indignant, "you all but ripped my dress off!"

His eyebrows nearly hit his hairline when he heard that, his mouth going dry at the picture she began to paint for him. "And you held my hair too tightly, too," she complained, almost like she was pouting. "You basically threw me against the hedge, lifted me up and- and, uh, what's the word?" Jane lifted her head up from his shoulder to squint ahead of her, obviously trying to find the right term for what he had done to her.

Swallowing dryly, Loki shifted against the pillow and said, "I think the word you're looking for is ravaged."

"Yeah!" she exclaimed, going from annoyed to grateful in a moment, before going right back to the annoyance. "Yeah, that was it! You ravaged me. You were kissing me and touching me and it was really, really great." He had never heard a woman sound so annoyed about enjoying herself, he thought dazedly. "You were saying… stuff, and I really liked that part, especially when you put your hands up my skirt."

She sighed gustily and laid her head back on his shoulder, her voice lowering into something more reminiscent of a whine. "You were touching me, which was nice, and you kissed that place on my neck that I like, and then…"

"And then?" he urged, his voice slightly tighter than usual.

"And then when you were about to…" She waved lazily in front of her, a vague gesture that somehow managed to convey so much. "I woke up. Which sucked, by the way."

He was silent for a long time, just absorbing her slightly clipped, annoyed story. He had hidden himself in the hedge maze, told her to run and find him, and then proceeded to ravage her senseless in said maze like a true rake. That did sound like something he would do. In fact, he had done it, or some version of it, at least once or twice.

But the idea of doing that with Jane, of her dreaming about it and enjoying it, was almost too much to bear when he could do nothing about it. In a way, though, he was glad she was drunk, because there was no way she could notice the fact that his leather trousers hid absolutely nothing when he was as hard as he was in that moment.

"You said in the library that you were trying to do something before you saw me again," he dragged out evenly, a dozen thoughts clamoring in his mind at once. The image of him doing exactly as she dreamed was undoubtedly going to stay with him for a very long time, no matter how much it made him suffer. "What was it?" She would be asleep soon, and he had to know.

"Mm? Oh, that. I was looking for someone to sleep with, so I could get you out of my system," she answered, pressing her nose into the crook of his neck with a deep breath. "Smells good."

His heart thundered in his chest, a mix of lust and excitement pumping in his blood, but a scowl marred his sharp features at the idea of her trying to work through her lust for him with someone else. Obviously she desired him, and now that he knew that, he wasn't about to let her sleep with someone else to forget him. He refused to allow that.

"Jane?" he said, voice low and soothing.

"Mm?"

"I've no choice but to seduce you now."

She hummed again, her head resting trustingly on his shoulder, and murmured, "oh, that's nice," before promptly falling asleep against him.


	14. Late Night Radio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked: Any chance you're willing to continue the Jane/Loki market/slavery thing? Because that was truly excellent and I would love to read more. If not, and if you're still accepting prompts: Jane/Loki, insomniac calling some sort of phone hotline or call center. Could be anything. Crisis counseling, home shopping network, phone sex, ordering 50 pink camo hats and pants C.O.D. to Nunavut, psychic, tech support,late night talk radio,411, whatever.
> 
> Note: Aw, that's so nice! Thank you so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I am definitely going to be writing little companion pieces to Festival of Cages, but I just haven't gotten the right prompts yet. I don't really know what the right prompt is, exactly, it just has to be automatically associated with that particular universe in my head - which doesn't make much sense, I know. Basically, when a prompt fits the theme of it in my mind, I'll write the next part to it. Also, I'll pick this apart for typos tomorrow (I'm sure there are a million), but right now I've got to get to sleep.

"You're on in five."

Jane nodded, adjusting the large headphones over her ears. When they were correctly placed, she cleared her throat and leaned forward, waiting for the high beep that would tell her to speak. Her arms resting comfortably on the table, Jane was the picture of radio-host preparedness.

Beep!

"Good evening, everybody," she began, picturing her audience of a couple dozen, "I hope you guys are doing just fine tonight. It is eleven PM, and that means it's time for Astronomy Hour."

Never in her life did she imagine she would host a radio show. She wasn't exactly the most social woman, and it wasn't like people liked listening to her about anything. Not in a million years did she think she could ever do something so ridiculous, but with the rising popularity of podcasts and satellite radio and her lack of funding, something she never imagined herself doing became the perfect solution for her. Of course, she wouldn't call herself a good radio host, or even a popular one, but it had decent hours and required very little work on her part, so it fit perfectly with her research.

Besides, it was nice to ramble on about new findings in the field and her own opinions to people who presumably cared a little bit, even if she never heard from most of them.

"Tonight we've got a few things to talk about," she said, eyeing her notes critically, trying to find the actually important bits in the mess of scribbles. "We're going to be talking about the new images from the Hubble telescope, the controversy surrounding Tony Stark's plans to go to Mars by twenty-sixteen, and why you should not run screaming in the streets whenever a headline reads 'Astroid headed straight for Earth!' tonight."

Even though she didn't have a cohost to bounce off of, Jane found that she liked her little show more than she ever thought she would. Sure, their listeners were not so great in number, and sure, she got some hate mail from colleagues who thought she was an idiot, but she still enjoyed it. The astrophysicist actually felt like she was teaching people a thing or two about the universe around them, like people were listening to her for once, and that was enormously satisfying.

The decent pay that was funding her research didn't hurt either.

"…which is very interesting, because previously scientists assumed that such a system couldn't exist so far from its star! The discovery has much wider implications for our search for extraterrestrial beings, as well as other habitable planets - not to mention that it could rewrite the definition of what we classify as a 'planet'." As the show began to take its usual course, Jane became more and more enthusiastic, her hands waving in front of her as if she could show her listeners exactly what she was talking about through the microphone.

A cup of half-finished, now chilled coffee sat beside her hastily scribbled notes, and she very nearly knocked it over when she got a bit too into the topic of private space travel. "Oh, crap, I almost spilled my coffee again," she said, laughing to herself as she pushed the cup away from the reach of her flying elbows.

"It's dangerous to be around an astrophysicist, you know," she playfully explained to her imaginary audience, "because when we start talking, so do our elbows."

Lightly clearing her throat, Jane glanced up at her producer, who was holding up one finger to her through the glass of the mixing room. "Well, it's time for a message break, guys," she said, feeling the first stirrings of excitement in her belly. "When we come back, I'll be taking some calls from listeners about Tony Stark's ambitious 'Me To Mars' project, so stay tuned. If you'd like to put your two cents in, call our hotline - I'd love to hear from you!"

Beep!

"Do you think he's going to call tonight?" Jane asked, looking up at her producer with an expectant expression.

"I don't know," he replied, eyes down on the screens of the many computers in front of him in his little room. "He never calls on a schedule, does he?" Jane shook her head as she leaned back in her chair, a sigh leaving her.

Her mysterious caller had been dialing in sporadically for the past several weeks, and Jane would be lying if she said that she didn't look forward to it every time he did. At first, it was a slight annoyance, because he seemed to take a lot of pleasure in goading her, but as the calls continued, she would actually admit that she was quite… fond of the strange, nameless man who liked to talk to her for no other reason than to pick her brain.

At least, that's what he told her the last time he called. He said it in that low, raspy voice of his that, if she had been alone when listening to it, would have melted her into a puddle of Jane flavored goo. It was possible that she had a tiny crush on the odd man, but it was purely based on his apparent intelligence and the chocolatey quality of his voice.

In real life, he probably had a face like a bowl of oatmeal and the manners of some frat boy, no matter how polished and charming he sounded.

"You're on in five, Jane," her producer warned her.

Jane sucked in a deep breath, trying to get rid of the silly butterflies in her belly at the idea of him calling. It had been several days since she had last heard from him, and the more time that passed, the more anticipation built up inside of her. Which was absolutely ridiculous, she reminded herself firmly as she leaned back toward the microphone.

Beep!

"And we're back," she announced, forcefully ignoring her fluttering nerves. "Thanks for staying with me, guys. Now I'm going to get to your phone calls. If you'd like to call in, just remember to call the hotline now at one eight-hundred ASTROS."

The brunette flicked her eyes toward her monitor, which showed the list of numbers calling in. It was useless looking for a number for him, though, because he used a different one each time. Another clue that he's probably a psycho.

Picking the number at the top of the list, Jane's heart jumped into her throat as the line connected. "Good evening, caller," she greeted, forcefully casual, "how are you tonight?"

"Oh, I'm just fine, thanks!" That was certainly not her mysterious caller. The female voice was high and excited, the exact opposite from the man she wanted to hear from.

Just restraining a sigh of disappointment, Jane replied, "That's great to hear. What did you call in for tonight?"

"First of all, I just wanna say that I really like your show, Jane! My husband and I like to listen at night when he comes home from work so we don't have to…"

In the end, the woman didn't have a productive thing to say in her brain, which always annoyed her. Jane understood and appreciated the fact that they wanted to tell her how much they liked the show, but that was why she had an email address specifically for fanmail. If they didn't want to actually talk science, they had no reason to be on the air.

When she finally found a good place to cut the woman off, it was done with the utmost relief. Even if the strange caller didn't dial in, was it too much to hope for someone who actually was on topic? She had picked a good one, too! Everyone had heard about Tony Stark, and everyone seemed to have an opinion on his goal of being the first man to step on Mars. She had assumed that such a topic would be swarming with people wanting to put their thoughts in.

"Alright, time for another caller," she said, not even bothering to anything but glance at the list before she picked another number at random. There was a click and then the background noise that every call had, even if the person was in a completely quiet room. "Hi caller, you're on with Jane. How are you tonight?"

A beat of silence passed, and Jane was opening her mouth to ask if anyone was there when a low, smooth voice filled her headphones. "Good evening, Jane," her caller murmured in that bedroom voice of his, "it's been too long since we last spoke."

It felt like her tongue had been tied into knots. It's him. The mysterious man with the voice like velvet. Jane locked eyes with her producer through the glass that separated them, his face a mixture of amused and exasperated. He shook his head and looked away, like he couldn't believe this was happening again.

Jane shook herself out of her paralyzed state and lightly cleared her throat, her cheeks filling with color at being so obviously caught off-guard. "I should have known you would call tonight," she finally replied, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. "You always call when we talk about eccentric billionaires."

"Tsk, Jane," he chided in that voice of his that made her insides warm deliciously, "don't presume I'm so easy to decipher. Perhaps it's some other reason not connected to the idiots you speak of. Maybe I just missed you."

He loved doing that to her. Jane didn't know how he knew, but she was certain he could tell she was sitting there with butterflies in her belly and her lip caught between her teeth like a schoolgirl. "What did I say about flirting last time you called?" she scolded, trying her damnedest not sound like she actually enjoyed it.

"Oh, yes, I nearly forgot about that," he replied in a way that made it completely obvious he hadn't. "You said I wasn't allowed to flirt with a radio host, especially if I didn't give you my name. It's too bad for you that I am going to do it anyway." He sounded so smug that Jane was sure she would probably hate him if she knew him in real life, but as it was, that tone actually made him sound more attractive over the phone.

Damn him.

"This is a science show," Jane reminded him, smiling to herself as she toyed with the corner of her notes, "you aren't allowed to flirt on a show about science. I told you that."

"So you did, Jane -" oh, she loved the way he said her name "- but I simply don't care. I suspect you don't either."

Oh god, she couldn't look her producer in the eye now. Jane dropped her elbows onto the table and covered her blushing face with her hands, only leaving her mouth visible. He was trying to humiliate her, just like usual, and damn him if it wasn't effective. "Did you actually have an opinion on the subject at hand?" she asked, trying to sound more annoyed than flustered, which was difficult.

She heard him take a breath, and she imagined that he was probably smiling quite broadly at her then. "I do, of course," he replied, his lovely voice quite amused. "Tony Stark is an idiot who could barely tie his shoes without his assistant, but there is no doubt in my mind that he will get to Mars when he says he will."

Jane hadn't been lying when she said he always called when she was talking about the people of high society. He always seemed to have an opinion about them, as if he actually knew them - or like he spent his days scanning the headlines for the rich folk like the creep he probably was.

"You don't think it's a bold claim?" she asked, genuinely curious. Creep or not, he seemed quite intelligent, and he usually had some interesting insights into subjects that she hadn't thought of. Even if he was a man with a neckbeard who sat in his underwear all day watching TMZ, he at least sounded like he actually knew what he was talking about. "With private space travel not even reaching the moon yet, it seems just a bit of a risk to go all out and say he'll be on Mars by next year."

"Who says they haven't been to the moon yet?" he asked, sounding smug again.

Jane snorted in an unladylike way and smiled to herself. "If Stark had been to the moon, we would have all heard about it by now. He would have carved his name in the Sea of Tranquility and sent out a worldwide snapchat."

He laughed then, making her toes curl in that it-should-be-illegal way he was so good at. "Oh Jane," he sighed out when his chuckles died down, "I do so hope he was listening to that."

"Tony Stark does not listen to my show," she replied, rolling her eyes at the absurd notion.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that, Miss Foster." He was sounding cryptic now, which she was almost a hundred percent sure was an act. No one could sound so mysterious so often without practicing in the mirror a lot.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, dismissing the whole idea altogether. The alternative was too humiliating to contemplate.

"I didn't call to talk about Tony, though," he admitted, which didn't surprise her at all. He almost never called for the topic, except when it involved making fun of people. Jane smiled to herself and leaned her chin onto her palm, knowing she was enjoying this conversation far more than she should be.

"Why did you call, then?" she prompted, hardly as annoyed as she would be if he was any other caller.

"I'm taking you to lunch tomorrow," he announced, as calm and sure as a man stating that the sky was blue.

"Excuse me?" she sputtered, thrown completely off-kilter.

"We're going to lunch tomorrow, Jane," he patiently repeated, as if that wasn't a completely odd and slightly creepy thing to say, considering they had never met and never would.

Jane looked up at her producer, who was staring at her with his mouth agape. It was an ongoing saga with this particular caller, and they had often discussed him off the air, but even he hadn't ever thought he would say something like that.

"I-" Jane's tongue went fuzzy when she tried to formulate a reply, which was utterly mortifying. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "I- I don't even know your name," she said, moments before she realized just how dumb that sounded.

"You'll learn it quite quickly, I assure you."

Completely baffled, Jane groped for some sort of excuse to get him off the crazy idea of actually meeting her. Sexy voice aside, she had no plans on going for lunch with some guy she had never met, didn't know the name of, and suspected might be a serial killer with a fetish for radio hosts. "Um," she said, finally landing on a good excuse, "I can't. I have a big meeting tomorrow."

She could hardly believe she was actually trying to find a legitimate excuse to not go out with this man, but it was the truth. She was meeting the man who bought out the whole satellite radio affiliate tomorrow for lunch, which was something she really needed to prepare herself for, now that she thought about it. Loki Odinson was apparently a big fan of her show and wanted to talk about some other "opportunities" for her, whatever that meant.

Jane certainly couldn't miss that for some psycho who lived in his basement.

The man paused, and for a moment she thought she was free and clear. As curious as she was to finally see if he was as strange as she pictured him to be, she also knew that she was probably better off not meeting the man. Sexy voice or not, she wasn't too keen on being the subject of some obsessive fan date. She thought was free and clear, too, until he spoke again. "I'm aware," he murmured, sounding like the cat who got the cream. "Roudin at noon. We're discussing your contract. My assistant it the one who called you."

All the blood drained from Jane's face as she listened, the only thought making it through her shock being, oh my god.

"And Jane," he added, so smug she could nearly feel it, "do feel free to call me Loki."

And with that, the line went dead.

Beep!


	15. A Night In Oslo II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked: If you're still taking prompts: Loki/Jane, Sickness.

The first time Beatrice got sick, Loki had assumed that Jane would be the calm one, the one to offer logic and comfort. Since he had found her four months ago in New Mexico, he had all but sewn himself into her life, and in doing so, he had gotten to know her in ways he had only dreamed of during his long search.

He learned that she was an odd mix of shyness and passion, kindness and quick temper, sexual prowess and modesty. She was playful but deadly serious about her work, and so proud that it took him two months of cajoling and persuading to get her to move in with him. Jane was fiercely independent, and it was a great annoyance to him that he was not allowed to shower her in gifts as he liked. He could spoil their daughter (and still, four months since her birth, he still wasn't used to that title) all he wanted, but she hated being seen as a "gold digger" as she called it.

But in all his study of her, he had assumed that she would handle stress well. In fact, he rather thought she did, considering how she put up with him. However, he failed to take into account the fact that being a mother was another beast entirely - nearly a whole separate personality from a woman's usual state - and how she handled things regarding their daughter was completely different than how she might in regards to herself.

Beatrice was Jane's everything, he found. Whereas they were still getting to know one another, Jane had had nearly a year getting to know "her little bean", with no one else to help or speak to. Beatrice, squishy and perpetually moist as she was, was Jane's whole universe. She protected her fiercely, was constantly speaking to her about things she could not possibly comprehend, and could barely stand it when she was out of sight.

Still, Jane was a calm mother. She was not easily flustered by wailing or accidents, and she didn't hover over him when he was taking his time getting to know his child.

He assumed that she would not freak out when their daughter inevitably fell ill, as all children did, but he was wrong.

Very wrong.

"Did you sanitize the thermometer?"

"Yes," Loki replied patiently as he watched Jane circle the nursery anxiously, the crying baby in her arms. She was trying all her usual tricks to get her to calm down, like walking with her and humming softly, but nothing could calm the feverish child.

They had been up for over nineteen hours now, and Jane's anxiousness and fatigue were only making things worse. The woman he was falling in love with was an utter mess, and he rather thought it was time for him to step in. "Jane," he said, stepping into the opulently decorated nursery, baby thermometer in hand. "Jane, you look like you're about to rattle apart. Please sit down."

The exhausted, stressed woman shook her head, her expression pinched as she cradled the back of their wailing daughter's head. "She'll only cry more," she objected, doing another turn around the room. "Did you call the doctor again?"

"I did," he answered, sighing deeply, as he watched her bounce and sway, trying in vain to calm Beatrice. "He said that her fever is not high enough to warrant a hospital visit. And since we managed to give her milk just before she napped, she should be okay. Jane, she's going to be fine. You must allow yourself to rest and allow her to fight off the sickness on her own."

Never in all his years did he think he would ever be the calm parent. If anything, he had assumed that he would never put himself in the path of having children, and if he did, he thought that he would be too disgusted by such things as throw up and diapers to even be around when such things happened. But somehow he had ended up being the calm parent, the voice of reason, as well as someone offering comfort.

His brother would be laughing his ass off if he could see him now.

"I want to sleep, but I can't," she insisted, sending him a pitiful, worried look. It made something inside him ache to see her like this, and even though he was still unsure about his role as a father, it also ate at him to know his daughter was in discomfort. The woman he cared immensely for and the baby he was learning to love were both in trouble (relatively minor as it was), and so he needed to fix the issue.

He couldn't take Beatrice's fever from her, no matter how much he wanted to, but he could do something about her fretting mother.

"No, Jane," he stated firmly, "this cannot go on. You are not helping Beatrice, you're hurting her. Your anxiety is making her feel worse." It was harsh, he knew, but it was the truth. Loki stepped closer to the mother and child, holding out his hands for the baby. "Give her to me, Jane. You are not fit to do this anymore. Get some sleep. I'll take care of her."

Jane opened her mouth to heatedly protest, but he sharply cut her off. "Do you think me incompetent, Jane?" he asked her, expression stony. "Do you think I cannot care for my own daughter? Or you, for that matter? It is my job to look after you and our child. Do not insult me, Jane."

She looked startled, and the strain of the situation and her lack of sleep made her quick to tears. They pooled in those big brown eyes he loved so much, but he could not waver. Gentling, he gripped both of her arms softly, his thumbs rubbing there in small circles. "Jane," he whispered, barely heard over Beatrice's cries, his eyes staring intently into hers. "Jane, you must listen to me. I do this because I care. I will watch her and see to her every comfort, if you will but do the same for yourself."

She blinked, causing one fat tear to escape and roll down her cheek. The sight of it nearly broke his heart. For how much he enjoyed causing strife and getting her angry at him, he found that he could not bear the sight of her crying in front of him. With the utmost care, Loki used his thumb to swipe the tear from her cheek. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, trying to comfort her. "Do not worry, Jane. I'll take care of our daughter."

Jane sniffled, a ragged breath leaving her, and slowly nodded. "You'll give her her medicine in an hour?" she asked anxiously, though there was a definite note of resignation in her voice. "And you'll wake me up if her fever goes up at all?"

"Of course, dearest Jane," he assured her, relieved to finally have her getting some rest. He watched her swallow thickly, her eyes darting to their daughter several times before she finally, reluctantly, transferred her into her father's waiting arms. He wasn't exactly keen to hold a screaming, slobbering baby, but he would. Beatrice had a place in his heart that was growing so quickly he could barely keep up, right beside her mother's place. If he had to put up with his finely tailored shirts getting puked on for her, he would.

When the baby was safely tucked in his arms, he gave Jane a confident nod and motioned for her to leave the room. "Go, Jane," he commanded her, a small smile on his lips, "sleep well. I'll wake you if anything happens."

Jane nodded reluctantly, her eyes glued to their daughter for a long moment, before she seemed to force herself to look away. Sniffling, she hustled out of the nursery, and Loki knew that if she had gone any slower, she would have just turned around and come back.

"Hush, darling girl," he murmured in Beatrice's ear as he stroked her back with his long fingers. "Everything is alright." Beatrice seemed to calm down slowly as he spoke, her red, pinched face easing just slightly as her wails turned into pitiful whimpers. He had a feeling that Jane's anxiety had caused a lot of discomfort for the baby, and that theory seemed to be confirmed by how quickly she calmed when her mother left the room. Beatrice was used to Jane being a calming, sweet presence. Having her flustered and exhausted probably upset her more than her fever did.

"Now, then," he said, feeling quite pleased with himself now that Beatrice had calmed, "how should we get that fever to go away?" Stroking the back of her head with his thumb, Loki tried to think back to what his mother had done for him when he had a fever as a child.

"Oh, that's right," he muttered to himself as he padded out of the nursery on bare feet, heading towards the kitchen. The baby rested on his chest and shoulder, secured to his body with one large hand, her little face pink and her expression tight, on the brink of breaking out in a wail at any moment.

The father hastily rifled through the drawers of the kitchen, searching for a a suitable dishrag, and eventually pulled one of Jane's old ones out. It was a soft thing, obviously well worn but recently washed, and it would do just fine for what he had in mind.

One hand still carefully holding his child, Loki managed to wet the towel in cool water, wring it out, and then set it on the marble countertops before he moved over to the freezer to pull out four smallish ice cubes. Those in hand, he padded back over to the cloth and set the min the center, his hand slowly but surely wrapping the cubes up in the damp towel. Once it was all rolled up, he carefully balanced the cloth in hand, trying not to spill the ice cubes out of the side, and pressed it to the back of Beatrice's neck.

The baby squealed in surprise, but quickly calmed down as the coolness began to seep through her heated skin. Leaning against the countertop, Loki sighed with relief as he watched her tiny face unscrew itself and her eyelids begin to droop. He was no amazing father, and he wasn't even sure he was a halfway decent one yet, but he did care for his daughter, if he didn't love her already, and when she was happy, so was he.

"You've turned me into fool, Beatrice," he noted ruefully as he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. "An utter fool. Your mother as well. The both of you will be the end of me."


	16. Hellfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noted: I'm taking a very brief (as in, this is it) break from our regularly scheduled prompts to give you this ridiculous drabble that came to me late the other night when I was tripping on cough syrup and thinking about Anglo-Saxon myths.

onestly, Jane blamed the king for all her troubles.

The people of her village thought to blame the gods, or the sinners, or even the tides of time, but she knew better. Gods and sinners, time and chance – none of that was the cause of all their troubles. The gods did not make taxes, after all, and neither did they make the incredibly foolish mistake of being too proud with a dragon.

Her fellow villagers were an idiotic, superstitious bunch, she had long ago decided. They would rather blame poor management of resources on goblins stealing all the grain in the night, and thought that the stars in the sky were diamonds a princess from a thousand years ago tossed up into the air for the gods. They were quick to make judgments based on the scantest of evidence, and rarely listened to reason. Perhaps there had been hope for them before this, but Jane had decided on it once and for all. They were a dumb, brutish lot, and if this was how she was to die, it was a blessing. At least she wouldn't have to suffer their idiocy another second.

Still, she thought as she stood there chained to a boulder, I blame the king for this whole mess in the first place.

If he had only offered up the dragon's tribute like every king before him had done, none of this would have happened. But His Majesty King Thor was young, only a year on the throne, and hungry to make a name for himself as a strong, proud leader. He refused to offer a tribute to the dragon, disregarding the hundreds of years of tradition (and safety) for the sake of his pride.

It was his fault whole swaths of the country had been plundered and destroyed. It was his fault people were dying. And it was his fault she was chained to this bloody boulder.

If King Thor had just given the dragon his proper payment, he would have never had to fear for the safety of his wealth – and he never would have thought to move nearly the entire treasury to their tiny hamlet in the hope that it would not be discovered by the beast seeking it as his dutiful payment. Thor made the miscalculation that dragons were dull, witless beasts who had eyes only for gold and no brains to see past it. Every young child in the countryside could have told him differently. They knew the power and cunning of dragons, since they were the ones traditionally slaughtered when kings such as him were stupid enough to insult them.

Unfortunately, just because the people knew the creature had sense, didn't mean they themselves had any. Which was why Jane was in her current predicament: chained to a large boulder at the edge of a bluff overlooking the town, a gift to appease the rampaging creature. They hoped a virgin sacrifice would spare them from his wrath, and since Jane was an outsider, an orphan who lurked in the night and preferred books to company, it was an easy choice to make. Could she really blame them? No, not when they were so ignorant they could barely buckle their belts in the morning, but that didn't stop her from hating them any less as she stood up there, shivering in the wind and dressed only in a plain cotton shift.

Now, she couldn't say that she knew a lot about dragons, but she highly doubted one measly country girl in her underthings was going to save them from him, not when it went far deeper than a lust for gold. She wasn't being offered by the king, after all, and so the dragon would not be appeased. Her town would burn because they were stupid enough to think this was about greed.

Of course, she had told them as much when they pulled her from her bed in the middle of the night in traditional countryside style: carrying torches and stinking of whiskey. A mob, she had thought sarcastically as she was dragged to the town center in her nightclothes, oh yes, that'll fix things. All of you get together, drink too much, and start carrying torches. That'll beget fantastic solutions to your problems, you bunch of bloody idiots.

It was an honor, the eldest of the town leaders had told her, to die for your people. She would be remembered fondly and dearly missed.

Jane had spit at his feet.

That, in hindsight, was probably not the wisest decision, considering her position at the time, but she hadn't been able to restrain herself. They could kill her, she had said, but she would at least be given the courtesy of being told the truth. They wouldn't miss her, and they were probably all going to die anyway, so they could happily shove it.

In the end, none of her vitriol or common sense had saved her. She was stripped down, washed, her hair braided, perfumed, dressed in a simple white shift, and promptly carried up to the bluff, her hands and feet tied so that she would not fight them and dirty herself. A virgin had to look clean, after all, to appeal to the beast. And after that, they had hammered bolts into a boulder at the crest of the hill and chained her to them by the wrists, as if regular rope would simply not do.

She cursed them all as they built the dragon fire in front of her, the ice-cold flames nearly licking the front of her shift as they built it up into a beacon to draw the eye of the beast.

"You're all going to die!" she had screamed at them as they began to file back down the bluff, not a single one of them meeting her eyes. "This isn't about greed, you morons! If you really wanted to save your yellow asses, you would put the bloody king up here!"

And then she was alone.

Jane was left to die there by herself, shivering in the cool Autumn wind, her arms shackled to the boulder behind her, spread wide like she was awaiting an embrace. The fire was colder than the wind, the pale yellow flames deceptively bright, and it did very little to cast away the large stone of fear that settled in her belly when all she could hear was the crackle of the fire and the whistling of the wind.

She was going to die, and so was everyone else, because no one was smart enough to look past their fear and see the true heart of the issue. Jane almost wished that her death at the hands of the dragon would save the poor, ignorant brutes in the town below her, but she knew that wasn't the case. Her death would be just as pointless as every other one that came before her. They could all save themselves, too, if they just left the town to the dragon.

But doing so would leave them at the mercy of the king, and for all his rumored kind heartedness, even he would not hesitate to try each and every one of them for treason if they abandoned his gold to save their skins. Maybe being burned by the icy fire of a dragon was better than dying a traitor, but Jane didn't know. She never would. The decision to die as an unwilling martyr had already been made for her, and the anger that inspired in her was almost enough to make her forget her fear.

Jane leaned back against the rock behind her, her legs having begun to ache from standing so rigidly in one place for so long. She couldn't sit without having her arms up in the air, but she could lean back so that some of her weight was put against the rock and her body was put mostly out of the way of the fire burning so cheerily in front of her. Those big brown eyes watched the merrily crackling signal fire malevolently, as if she could will it to go out by her glare alone. It was hell fire, the bastard flames that destroy lands and kill thousands. It was born from the gullet of a dragon, but men could save an ember of the fire and use it if they were foolish enough.

No dragon could pass by this side of the country and not see the roaring fire in front of her. And if a dragon saw it, it would know that it was being summoned. It wouldn't even be happenstance in this case, though, because they knew the dragon was coming. It had been spotted only a day's flight from their hamlet, setting towns ablaze left and right. In all honesty, Jane was surprised it hadn't already razed their tiny, insignificant town and looted all of the king's gold by now.

Standing there, arms bound with iron shackles, and fire raging before her, Jane knew that these were her last moments. She could cry, she supposed, but what use would it do? She had always been the practical sort, and tears were never practical. Besides, she was still too deep in shock to have her heart catch up with her mind yet. Jane hoped that it would stay that way. She didn't want to die in fear. Surprise and annoyance, sure, but not terror.

Perhaps that was the way to go out with some dignity, she thought grimly. Nearly naked and chained like a common criminal for no other crime than her sex and position as a fringe-dweller, the only way she could die without shame was if she confronted death as she did everything else that was not the stars: vaguely annoyed, unimpressed, and quite bored. The dragon could eat her whole and still she would die with dignity if she gave him a good telling-off first.

And maybe, if she was feeling generous, she could try and persuade the dragon that he was in the wrong place.

Jane sighed, knowing that she probably should, if she got the chance. They had offered her up like a steak on a silver platter to the beast, but did that mean every last one of them deserved to burn in that terrible fire? What shame would follow her into whatever afterlife there was if she did not at least try to save them? Jane's mouth twisted bitterly at the thought, but she knew she had to. They had ostracized her for her intelligence and lack of parents, stripped her nude in front of dozens, and offered her up to be eaten like a roasted pheasant, but she had to try.

The brunette shook her head, deciding that she didn't want hate and anger to be among the last feelings she had on this earth. Jane clenched and unclenched her numb fingers, the irons chafing her wrists when she tried to get into a more comfortable position. Giving up on comfort, she glanced upwards, past the dancing sparks the freezing fire spit up into the darkness, her eyes drawn toward everything that mattered to her.

Hundreds of thousands of stars winked down at her, same as ever – if not brighter. There was no moon that night, and so she could see each constellation she so dearly loved more clearly than she had in months. Standing there, freezing, miserable, prepared to die a gruesome death; Jane felt a small sense of peace settle over her. Perhaps the stars were not diamonds, but they meant everything to her. They were her family when she had none. They did not change and they did not waver. They were constant, and always would be.

She would die soon enough, but the stars would continue on. There was a measure of comfort in that.

To calm herself, she began to recite the constellations aloud, repeating the names and stories without a hitch over the increasingly loud crackle of the fire. Jane wasn't sure she believed in gods, but if there was a creator of the heavens, she hoped that when she died, she would get the chance to thank him or her, because they had given her everything – a companion, a purpose, a reason for living. No doubt when the villagers ventured into her tiny home after her death, they would find her stacks and stacks of notes and books. They would probably think her some sort of witch.

If they lived past the morning, of course.

On that note, Jane began to recitation over again, drawing herself away from the grimness of the whole situation with force. She was going to die either way, after all. There was no need to dwell on it if there was nothing she could do to change it.

The signal fire had grown large in front of her, so large that she could feel the icy prickles of the flames against her bare feet, forcing her further against the rock. It roared, consuming all the wood and tinder the villagers had fed it with, and became so loud that Jane had to nearly yell to hear herself. She had heard dragon fire was loud, like the roar of a dragon himself, but she had never suspected it could be quite like that. Frustrated, she yelled the names of the stars like a battle cry over the spitting flames. The cacophony was so loud and so close to her that she was completely unaware of the deep, thunderous beating of wings closing in on her. She was deaf to the approaching danger until she felt the great gusts of wind stir her hair and beat at the flames, tossing smoke and sparks her way.

The air and smoke from the fire hit her relentlessly as the great, looming shape of the dragon closed in, and Jane scrambled into a more upright position, her back pressing flat against the rock as she stared at the massive beast that was heading straight for her. Her doom had come more quickly than she anticipated. Not even halfway through her constellations, Jane didn't feel ready to die. The words she had been yelling lodged in her throat like a stone, and for the first time since she was a child and her mother fell ill, Jane felt true terror at what the future held.

She had grown up with terrible stories of dragons, describing their great size, terrible crimson eyes, and wickedly sharp teeth, but nothing – nothing – compared to actually seeing a dragon in the flesh.

He was the biggest thing she had ever seen.

He eclipsed the stars overhead, his wings cast shadows on the whole village below, and his head alone was bigger than the biggest building she had ever seen. As he swooped down, aiming straight for the fire (and her), she shrank backwards against the rock, like the cool stone could somehow hide her from those huge red eyes. He was on her now, those massive wings no longer beating but rather gliding, until he was right overhead. Those wide, powerful appendages stretched out into their full length and swept forward in a snapping motion, suddenly stopping his momentum and whipping a large gust of air, smoke, and dirt directly into her face.

Jane gasped and wheezed, jerking on her chains in a vain attempt to cover her face as he landed, the ground shaking like it was not made of stone and dirt but something far more flimsy. The rock behind her trembled, and so did she. Her face turned away and eyes squeezed tightly shut, Jane forgot her promise to be brave and strong. She could feel him approach, could feel the air change when the massive creature closed in on her. Wind puffed against her face, rustling her hair, but it was slightly warm and moist, nearly making her gag when she realized it wasn't wind at all, but breath.

But terrified as she was, Jane was still human. Not even she could resist the temptation to look at the stuff of nightmares and horror stories. Her stomach rolling with fear and disgust, the woman licked her dirty, chapped lips and slowly turned her head forward, her eyes still tightly shut. Morbid curiosity ate at her, but fear still kept her eyes shut. She waited for the fire to come, to sear her flesh from her bones, or for his teeth to do something similar.

Is this how I am to die? She asked herself as she stood there, trembling like a leaf. A terrified child huddled against a rock? Never to look my murderer in the eye?

Was that how her parents had raised her? Was that how Erik had taught her?

No.

She forced her eyes open, and promptly wished she had kept the screwed shut. The dragon was so close that if her hands were unshackled, she could have reached out and laid her hand on his snout, and his head alone completely dwarfed her. Jane stared at the monster before her, nearly numb with shock and fear.

First, she saw his eyes. Nearly the size of her head, they were slit down the middle like a cats' eyes, and were the color of the freshest blood. They nearly glowed against the dark blue scales, as if there was a fire burning within them that was lit by magic. He watched her with those huge eyes like a person, an old intelligence in him telling her that King Thor had truly been a fool to cross him. They held her captive for a timeless moment, refusing to let go until he suddenly leaned closer, his nose nearly touching her shoulder as he inspected her.

Jane gasped, too scared to actually scream, and leaned as far back as she could, her eyes darting around the beast as if she was looking for a way to beat him back. She noted his great, gold gilded horns, and the teeth as long as her arm, alongside the incredibly large claws on each foot that could tear her apart like she was made of butter. No stories could accurately capture how terrifying this beast was, she decided, biting back a whimper when his nose just stirred her hair.

"Stop!" she cried as she saw his blue lips begin to pull back from his teeth, the fire from his belly glowing in his throat and the gaps between those terrible weapons. Her voice was high and not exactly intimidating, but it seemed to give him pause. The creature's lips lowered back over his teeth, and the small tendrils of white smoke hissed out of his nostrils as he slowly pulled back, one great foot nearly crushing the massive bonfire into nothing as he moved.

He watched her expectantly, as he if was waiting for her to explain exactly why he should stop. Jane watched him, her chest heaving and her arms straining against her shackles. Her throat stung from the smoke of the fire and fear tied her tongue into knots, but she had to find a way to speak. He would kill her anyway, but perhaps she could do some good before she died. Deserving or not, she didn't want everyone in the town below to burn. This terrible monster would destroy them all, but being a coward would not be her last act on this world. Swallowing with difficulty, she looked the monster directly in the eyes, as if he were a person and not a beast. As if he could not cook her with that magical flame in his breast, or tear her to ribbons with those shining teeth of his.

"I know you're going to kill me," she stated, voice hoarse and strained with both fear and smoke inhalation. "I know that. I'm not going to try and persuade you differently, because it would be a waste of my very precious breath at this point." Jane licked her lips once more, trying to gauge if he could understand her or not. Dragons were cunning and cruel, but could they understand human speech? She had no idea. He seemed to, by the look in his eyes. She hoped he could.

"I just- I just want to say," she paused, clearing her throat so that it would not crack, "that I know this isn't about gold. Not really. You're teaching Thor a lesson. I get that. I even support it. I know I'm j-just a country girl who knows little about what happens in the capital. But that's no reason to kill the people down there. They aren't part of it." Jane wasn't sure, but it almost looked like he was raising an eyebrow at her, with the meaty flesh around his eye arching in a distinctly… human way. As if he was saying, "Them? The people who are letting you die?"

She nodded vigorously, feeling a bit of strength return to her as she actually leaned toward the dragon. "Yes, them," she confirmed, the chains rattling against the stone as she instinctively tried to speak with her arms. "They're stupid an-and they can't see past their own noses, but they're still people. You have a problem with the King, not them. If you want the gold, take it. Take it all. Just spare the people. Please."

The dragon watched her with those intelligent eyes of his, every breath ruffling her hair slightly. One huge foot stood in the remains of the manmade dragon fire, and his wings shifted against the powerful muscles of his back, as if he were deep in thought and shifting his weight without realizing it. Jane stood there, paralyzed, as she watched him watch her.

It seemed to take a lifetime, but finally the creature seemed to come to a decision. The look in his glowing crimson eyes changed, and for a moment, he looked like the cat that got the cream. Jane paled, her doe eyes widening with panic, and shrank back against the stone once more, knowing that this time he would surely kill her. Those blue lips pulled back in what looked like a dragon approximation of a grin, revealing every last one of his many huge, sharp teeth.

Her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest as he loomed closer, those teeth only inches away from her face. She was going to die, whether by devouring or burning she did not know, but it didn't really matter at that point. It was the end.

There is so much I never learned, she thought mournfully. So many stars I never charted.

Acrid smoke billowed from between his teeth now, the glowing flame illuminating his throat and chest. The white smoke filled her eyes, her nose, and her mouth, forcing out the air she desperately needed. Jane coughed and gagged, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. Eat me! She wanted to scream. Eat me! Anything was better than suffocation, she realized, her mind getting foggy as her throat and eyes burned. It felt like fire in her lungs, and it was agony.

But he didn't eat her. He hovered above her, his massive head mere inches away, as his throat worked, pushing out more and more smoke instead of his icy flames. There was no air to be had, and Jane very quickly realized that this was how she was to die. He would smother the breath out of her in the most agonizing way possible. Her ears rang and involuntary tears coursed down her cheeks, making tracks in the dust and ash that had coated them. Her head lulled forward, almost bumping into those ferocious teeth, and within moments she had passed out, her last thought an indistinct mush of fear and self-deprecation.

Darkness held such a grip over her that she did not even stir when the chains snapped, nor when the dragon gripped her frail body in one of his dangerous claws and took to the air again, leaving nothing but a smoldering fire and broken chains on the bluff.

.

She awoke to the sound of birdsong.

The lilting noise echoed above her, slowly penetrating the haze in her mind. Wakefulness came relatively quickly, but the memories of all that had happened (or rather, didn't happen) lagged behind. Jane shifted, not recalling her threadbare mattress ever being so comfortable as what she was currently laying on. Frowning, she lifted a hand to her temple, a dull ache pounding in her head. Had she drunk too much the night before? She hadn't done that since she was just a girl, so why… Her throat and nose stung viciously, as if they had been scorched, and Jane's eyes flew open at the sensation.

Gasping, the brunette shot up from where she had been laying, her eyes swinging wildly around for the monstrous beast that should have eaten her already. Her eyes darted about, taking in the massive nest of plush cushions she had been lounging on, as well as the jagged stone walls that rose up around her in a dome. Lanterns were scattered throughout the room, and when she looked up, she could just make out the shapes of the singing birds nesting in the crevices of the cave ceiling. On any other day she might have been thoroughly perplexed by the odd juxtaposition of the sheer opulence of the furnishings and the cave they were in, but not today.

Today, her most pressing concern was how she got there, and where the hell the dragon was.

Scrambling to her feet, Jane nearly knocked over a fine silver pitcher of placed near her head on a small, low table. Her head whipped around as she heard the clatter, and when she spotted the gleam of light on the liquid in the pitcher, her throat constricted, making her wince. For a moment, her panic and fear were overwhelmed by the burning in her throat. Desperate to ease it, she grasped the pitcher, ignored the cup next to it, and promptly drank as much as she was physically able. The water was ice cold, and it seemed to sooth the damage done by the smoke as it slid down her throat and into her belly.

She had never tasted something so sweet as that pitcher of water, and she mourned the loss of it when the pitcher was finally drained. Gasping for breath, she swiped at her mouth, wiping away the water that had dribbled down her chin in her haste. "Gods," she mumbled, dropping the pitcher onto the cushions carelessly. Now that her thirst was satiated, she needed to figure out where she was and, more importantly, where the dragon was.

The room she was in was large and filled with pillows and blankets, large enough to fit a dragon, she thought, but happily empty of one. That was a relief, but that opened up a whole new set of problems. Why hadn't she died? Where was she? How did she get there? What happened to the village?

None of those questions could be answered in the room she was in, she shrewdly realized. Taking a deep breath, Jane decided that she could no longer stay there. At the very least she needed to answer questions, and at most, she needed to escape wherever she was and return to her home. If it still exists.

Noting with more than a pinch of unease that her nightgown was still the same dirty thing it had been when she passed out, but that her face, neck, and hair had been meticulously cleaned and brushed of all ash and dust, Jane felt her disorientation increase. It was certainly nice to not be dirty, but the idea of an absent stranger cleaning her without her knowledge was not something that pleased her. Swallowing thickly, Jane decided not to dwell on that just yet. First, she had to figure out where she was.

She crept around the cushions on bare feet, moving toward the mouth of the cave. Peeking out, Jane saw a long, dim hallway made of cut stone, rows of small lanterns lighting the way to another opening at the opposite end. Peering into the semi-darkness, Jane narrowed her eyes at the opening. There was no movement in the corridor, but she thought she could just see a wink of light, the shine of something metallic, and since she had nowhere else to go, she figured she might as well start there.

The stone was cool under her feet, but Jane didn't care about that so much as the sound her steps made. Every noise seemed to echo in the hall, and Jane cringed whenever a pebble skittered or her shift brushed her legs. She stopped and started over and over again, freezing each time she made a noise, just waiting for a dragon to burst out and roast her. It seemed to take forever to reach the other end of the hall, but when she finally peered into the opening, Jane felt her mouth drop open in shock. Luckily, she spotted no dragon, but something equally as awe-inspiring.

Before her, in the biggest room she had ever seen, were mountains of gold and treasures. Countless coins, chests, jewels, thrones, bars, and every other imaginable thing of value filled that room, which could probably fit her whole village easily. Dim light filtered in from small holes in the domed, rock ceiling, illuminating parts of the gold and jewels in shafts of pale light. There was more wealth in that massive chamber than there was in the entire kingdom, she estimated, her mind trying its hardest to grasp just what she was seeing. For a woman who had only held gold in her hands once or twice, seeing that was like seeing the sky turn green, or like having Thor himself seek her out to propose marriage.

Impossible. Overwhelming. Utterly absurd.

It was amazing and beautiful, right up until her sharp mind snapped back into focus and she realized just what it was.

A dragon's hoard.

She had unconsciously stepped into the room, drawn in by the absurd beauty of all the glittering wealth, but when she figured out what it all was, she jerked back as if she had been repelled, her clumsy steps spilling gold coins and a particularly large, jeweled goblet from their places. The clatter echoed throughout the chamber like an explosion, and Jane froze like a cornered animal, face pale as a sheet of parchment.

But a mighty dragon did not rise out of the hoard, ready to burn her alive for coming near it. No wings rose up around her, and no claws shot forward to tear her to pieces. Instead, she heard a deep, raspy chuckle from somewhere near the center of the hoard, where shafts of light illuminated something she hadn't noticed before, distracted by all the wealth she had never so much as dreamed of. Jane stared, gobsmacked, when she spotted the figure that had laughed at her.

He sat on a throne of gold ingots and bars, the highest pile out of all of them, his body completely nude and relaxed, legs spread and arms resting comfortably on a bolt of fine silk and an overturned marble statue. Two large horns rose from the man's forehead, half the length of them gilded into gleaming gold, long, raven hair tumbled down his shoulders like a ink, and all that skin he so shamelessly revealed to her was a deep, cobalt blue.

He was magnificent.

"Look at you," the man (creature?) spoke, dark amusement in every syllable of his words, "such a little thing. I thought you would perhaps be bigger when I took this form, but I was wrong. You are… tiny."

Jane stood stock still, her heart pounding as the man spoke. "Who are you?" she asked, voice trembling, as she looked at those deadly looking horns sprouting from his head. Her voice barely carried over the distance between them, but he seemed to have no problem hearing it. "Where is the dragon?" Was he an elf? A goblin? A demon? Had the villagers really been right all along with their superstitions and stories?

A wide, almost feral smile split the man's face as he slowly stood up from his makeshift throne, every muscle and bone in his body moving as fluidly as if he were made of liquid. His feet made no noise as he moved, and he somehow managed to make it across the chamber of treasures without so much as disturbing a single coin from its place. "Tsk," he scolded, grin still in place as he approached, "do you not see the resemblance, woman?" He waved grandly to himself as he loomed over her, his grand height only exacerbated by the mound of treasures he was standing on. He lacked any sort of a shame in regards to his nudity, and when Jane's eyes involuntarily gave his body a cursory glance, that smug smile only widened further.

Standing directly in a shaft of light closest to her, he gave Jane a moment to register exactly what she was looking at.

Blue skin. Large, curved horns dipped in gold. That feral grin. But most importantly, most chillingly, it was the eyes. He had large, crimson eyes fringed with long, black eyelashes, and with pupils slit down the middle like a feline's.

Jane scrambled backwards, trying to get away from the monster before her, but she miscalculated and ended up backing herself against the cavern wall instead of escaping into the hall. "Dragon," she breathed, neatly tacking on another title in her mind. Shapeshifter.

"Very good," he purred, following her retreat with that liquid gate of his, those long, naked legs stepping neatly over every glittering obstacle. His gleaming crimson eyes watched her greedily, taking in the look on her face and the way she held herself against the wall. How small she must have looked to him, she thought, dazed. Even in a human form, he was nearly seven feet tall, all lithe muscle and solid bone. Perhaps he even looked wiry, but her instincts told her that he would have no trouble snapping her in half if he wished.

"You look like a mouse corned by a ravenous cat," he teased, as if he was not the cat in the equation. "You need not fear me, little woman."

"You're a dragon," she insisted, incredulous, with her heart in her throat.

"I am aware," he replied, somehow smiling more widely, "but all the same, I will not harm you." He was close now, backing her further into the wall as he lifted one large, blue hand to touch a lock of her hair that rested on her shoulder. His hypnotic red eyes lowered as he fingered the silky strands, as if it was quite an important task he needed to focus on. "Why should I? It is not often a mortal stands up to a dragon for another, let alone those who would sacrifice her to save themselves."

He sighed softly through his nose, as if he were disappointed in the behavior of her fellow villagers, and slowly raised those piercing eyes back to her large, whiskey-colored ones. "What a treasure you must be," he purred, twirling the lock of hair around his finger slowly, "to be so strong and yet so clever. A tiny country mouse you may be, but you are sharper than one might assume. I can see it. I heard it, when you were yelling to the stars." He leaned close and bent a bit, his lips lowering to the shell of her ear, barely a centimeter away from touching her. "I do so love rare things," he breathed lowly, his warm breath ghosting over her skin.

Jane swallowed, frantically trying to recall every story she had ever heard about dragons. Dragons were dangerous. Dragons breathed fire that was cool but burned you all the same. Dragons loved gold and treasures above all things. Dragons were notoriously virile.

"Don't you dare touch me!" she exclaimed, outraged. Working purely on adrenalin, Jane braced her forearm against his chest and pushed with all her strength. Startled more than truly moved by her strength, the dragon took a step back, allowing the dainty woman to slip away from him. She scrambled for some sort of weapon in all the gold, picking up decorative dagger from the top of a pile. It was dull, but it was something, and that was enough. Pointing it daringly at the monster, Jane edged around him to slip back into the hall. "How dare you lay your hands on me," she seethed, voice trembling.

The dragon was watching her with wide eyes, but he did not look fearful. He looked delighted by her show of spine, so much so that a small, disbelieving laugh escaped him. "You laugh at me?" she growled, forcefully refusing to think about how this man was truly the massive beast who could fry her in a moment. As a man – even one with horns and blue skin – he was less intimidating. She had stood up to men before, and she would not stop now. "Kill me if you wish," Jane spat at him, "but if you dare lay a hand on me in lust, I will make you regret it."

The dragon cocked his head to one side, the slits of his pupils contracting oddly within the setting of those crimson irises. He licked his lips, his expression intensely focused as he watched her. He didn't even glance at the useless weapon in her hand, but rather held her gaze with his own without blinking. "Oh, I have no doubt," he drawled, sounding more pleased than he had any right to. "None at all."

She swallowed, some of her adrenalin leaving her. The arm that held the dagger began to shake slightly, but she forced herself to keep it up. "Good," she told him curtly, as if she was not scared to the marrow of her bones.

A smile curled at the dragon's lips, but he did not try to touch her again. Thank the gods. She had never let a naked man touch her before, and she did not plan to allow it now just because this particular one had the power to burn her alive.

"Do tell me," he murmured, his look going from intense to lazy in the blink of an eye, "what is your name, my treasure?"

Her face screwed up at the endearment, her fingers curling more tightly around the hilt of the useless weapon in her hand. "I'm Jane," she told him, tone biting. "I'm no one's treasure. Just Jane."

His crimson eyes gleamed with something she couldn't name and wasn't sure she wanted to. "Oh, but we both know that's not true, Jane." Her name rolled off of his tongue like hot, spiced wine, and Jane felt an involuntary stirring in her belly at the sound of it. No man had ever said her name like that before, and she sure as hell didn't like it now that one had. The dragon seemed to sense this, by the widening of his sharp grin, his perfect, white teeth glowing against his dark blue skin. "You are not just a treasure, dearest. You are my treasure."

"And that makes all the difference, does it?" Her voice was biting, but on the inside she trembled with terror when he smiled at her like that, like he knew all of her secrets and planned on using them to ruin her.

"It does," he told her, stepping close again, not even flinching when her dagger pressed against the skin of his chest, just above his heart. Those long lashes lowered dreamily over his crimson eyes as he leaned down, putting them nearly nose-to-nose. She held her breath, her hand trembling as she weakly pressed her useless weapon into his blue skin. "It makes all the difference, Jane," he whispered, his breath brushing against her lips like smoke. "You'll understand what that means soon enough."


	17. Of Witches And Weeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked: Thistle (and ivy).
> 
> Author's note: I'm back and taking prompts! Find me on tumblr at scribbliewibblie or leave a review with your prompt. Now, enjoy this Harry Potter flavored AU.

Jane liked to think she was a good witch.

She did exceptionally well in school, she had never cursed or hexed anybody, and she paid her taxes. Hell, she had never even gotten into a duel in her school years, even when she had been picked on. She was a good, law abiding citizen!

However, you wouldn't know it by her current predicament. The brunette scowled within the shadow of her cloak, her delicate hands pulling the heavy fabric more tightly around her frame as she slipped into a dank alley. Her boots splashed in murky puddles as she cast her eyes about anxiously, despite the fact that no one she might run into here would recognize her.

I can't believe I'm doing this, she thought, the gripe tinged with more than a hint of anxiety.

She didn't want to go into the seedy underbelly of wizarding New York and it wasn't something she had ever anticipated she might do, but there she was. It wasn't her fault that a lot of the laws in every wizarding community were woefully out of date. Nor was it her fault that she needed a plant that had been banned three hundred years ago for no reason other than it was undesirable in one's ornamental garden for a key piece of research.

Who bans a thistle, anyway?

Jane wrinkled her nose in disgust as she spotted two suspicious characters whispering to one another in a small alcove beneath a fire escape, both of them clearly making some sort of shady deal. She swallowed thickly and picked up her pace, wondering just when she would come across the entrance to the last place in the world she wanted to be.

It was a long, winding walk that got progressively more unsettling, but she did eventually come upon the hidden entrance. She shifted nervously from foot to foot for a moment, weighing her options. After all, did she really need to do this?

The answer was of course, yes. Jane had no choice but to go to a less than reputable store to get what she needed, even if it wasn't technically illegal. The petite woman frowned deeply at the inconspicuously grimy and graffiti-covered wall. The fact that she was being forced to this at all was enough to get her hackles up, but her temper was somewhat dampened by her nerves.

She was a good witch, after all, and had little experience with this sort of thing. She had done plenty of scolding in her time, but it was another thing entirely to stick yourself waist deep into the morally grey world of the wizarding underground.

Oh go on, you sissy, she inwardly snapped as she forced herself to walk forward. Her amber eyes squeezed shut tightly as she passed through the barrier, as if she expected it to repel her for being completely out of her depth. Unfortunately, it did no such thing.

When she cautiously opened her eyes, she was greeted not by a bustling market full of vendors hawking their illegal wares and sinister-looking shoppers, but rather a shockingly clean and reputable-looking lane of shops and kiosks. Admittedly, the shoppers did look a touch more sinister than her usual crowd, but there was none of the overtly shady deals happening in plain sight that she had expected, nor was there the plethora of hooked noses, grotesque scars, and missing limbs that she had pictured. All in all, it was actually kind of… disappointing.

Jane shook herself out of her strange, somewhat ridiculous reverie and looked around with determination, trying to find the shop she had come all this way for. Without thinking, she tugged the hood of her cloak down a little farther as she passed a small group of spindly, jumpy youths. She might have thought them particularly out of place if it were not for the leather pouches clutched so tightly in their hands.

Potion addicts, she thought with a wince of pity as they walked past her. The sight of the dark, almost green circles under their eyes and their drawn, emancipated frames made ice rush through her veins. For a moment she had forgotten the reality of this place. Her idea of it had gotten mixed with all the rumors she had heard and her own imagination, but those teenagers and their addictions were very, very real.

Her lips tightened into a thin line as she moved a bit faster, her eyes scanning the dull signs above the slightly rundown shops. Her destination turned out to be across from a disreputable-looking tavern, but it was by far the most attractive and well-maintained storefront on the street.

Antiques & Sundries was blazoned in fine gold letters above a large, only slightly dusty window, and the sight of it filled her with a small measure of relief. It didn't look so bad, after all. Maybe this whole endeavor wouldn't be as terrible as she had anticipated.

Although… she thought, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the window that despite being fairly clean, was actually impossible to look through, maybe I shouldn't make any snap judgements.

Squaring her shoulders, she told herself that it was time to quit procrastinating and just get the damn thing over with. Jane sucked in a deep breath and turned the polished brass knob; the cheerful jingle of bells above her head making her jump with surprise. Heart pounding, she quickly closed the door and stepped farther into the shop, her nerves thoroughly frayed.

She stood for a moment in front of the door as she slowly lowered her hood, her eyes carefully scanning the interior of store. It was surprisingly… homey.

It certainly had the "antique shop feel" that she was so used to from her many experiences with her non-magical, antique loving mother - by which she meant every surface was vaguely dusty, it was eerily silent, and one got the feeling of being constantly watched by the previous owners of the objects at every turn. Nearly every available space was crammed with merchandise, some of which looked as though it had been there for several decades, and there were only narrow, precarious footpaths to move around the stacks of books, chests, and other magical items that she did not dare touch.

Carefully pulling the edges of her cloak closer to her body so as to keep her contact with cursed objects to a minimum, she slowly began to make her way down one of the paths in search of a front desk, or counter, or even a shopkeeper. The place seemed deserted, but she doubted she could tell even if it wasn't due to the sheer volume and height of the merchandise. That might have been unsettling enough, but the way several skulls in dust jars seemed to turn to follow her as she walked by did not exactly put her at ease.

Jane wandered for a while and although she was too cautious to actually touch anything, she wouldn't be a witch with four masteries under belt if she were not terribly curious about many of the strange and evil-looking objects she passed. On more than one occasion she stopped to peer at a mysterious bottle full of undulating goo, a worn and oddly loud book, and even what appeared to be a six-headed, mummified lizard that was whispering to itself in butchered French.

If she weren't afraid of being cursed at any second, she would have had a ball going through the thousands of strange and macabre items in Antiques & Sundries. However, when she passed a harmless-looking mirror that thought it quite funny to let out an ear piercing shriek, she came to the conclusion that it was damn time she quit dawdling and sped up her search to find a shopkeeper of some kind.

Calling out didn't seem like such a good idea, so she quickened her steps and tried to find her way to some sort of register or table where money was exchanged. After all, that was the heart of every shop, and there was bound to be someone keeping an eye on the cash.

When she came to a fork in the path, she frowned and decided that the smartest course of action would be to follow the most worn path. Picking the left one, Jane expected another long, winding walk through a maze of merchandise, but when she rounded a sharp corner, she was surprised to find herself standing in a tidy alcove. There was a plush crimson rug covering the scratched wooden floor, fresh candles that were hovering at various heights, and two plush arm chairs situated against a floor to ceiling bookcase. Most notably, of course, was the man casually lounging in the larger chair.

He was reading the newspaper, so his upper body and torso was obscured, but by the look of his finely tailored black pants and almost obnoxiously shiny dragon leather shoes, he was a man of high society. After a moment of inspection, she noticed the almost garish silver and emerald ring on his right index finger, the jewel gleaming in the light in a distinctly unnatural way.

Jane immediately felt her expression sour.

This man was undoubtedly of ill repute - and a powerful enough wizard to forge magical jewelry. That kind of magic was grey bordering on dark, and took both a firm grasp on arithmancy and transfiguration. Not to mention the fact that the raw power needed to accomplish such a feat was a very, very rare thing.

The brunette would have liked nothing more than to turn around and forget she saw the man at all, but since he was the only person she seemed to be able to find in the blasted maze that was this shop, she knew she had little choice but to talk to him. Straightening her spine and smoothing one hand down the front of her non-magical sundress that was half hidden by her heavy cloak, she quietly cleared her throat.

The sound rang in the suffocating quiet of the store, but the man did not lower his newspaper. He didn't even peek over the edge, much to her annoyance. He merely continued to sit there, reading his paper as if she were not standing there only a few feet away. Jane scowled and slipped her hand in the pocket of her cloak, her fingers curling around the warm, familiar wood of her wand. She didn't plan on hexing the man, but holding it made her feel a little bit more calm and collected.

"Excuse me," she announced, her tone only slightly tinged with annoyance, "I'm try to find a-"

He cut her off with one long, aristocratic finger. Wait until I finish, the finger said.

Jane gaped at the newspaper for a moment, aghast at the idea of being shushed like a child, before she snapped her jaw shut. Annoyance seared through her as she found herself actually waiting for him to finish - like the impulse to do as he said was so ingrained in her from her childhood spent waiting for her father to finish reading one thing or another that it was a reflex. When she realized that she was actually humoring him, Jane sucked in a breath and put her hands on her hips, her cheeks going rosy with her aggravation.

Just as she was opening her mouth to give this arrogant wizard a good, furious piece of her mind, the newspaper slowly began to fold downward, revealing the most typical, aristocratic, sharp-nosed face she could have pictured. He looked like every pureblood asshole who had ever picked on her in school and the sight of his smug face made her dislike of him immediately skyrocket.

The dark-haired man meticulously folded his newspaper and set it on the armrest of the empty chair beside him before he finally lifted his eyes to the irate woman standing before him. He lazily scanned her from head to toe before cocking an eyebrow at her.

"Did you need something?" he asked, his voice a low rasp but his accent the impeccably cultured curl of a European pureblood.

It's worse than I thought, she thought snidely as she scowled at him. It was one thing to deal with an American wizard who thought he was better than everyone else, but it was another kettle of fish entirely to contend with a British pureblood. She had argued with enough of those bastards during her residency in London to last her a lifetime.

"I'm trying to find the shopkeeper," she stated curtly, "have you seen him or her anywhere?"

The man rested an elbow on his armrest and leaned back, looking for all intents and purposes like he was sitting on a throne of solid gold. "He's busy," he slowly replied in that lilting, arrogant tone.

"Do you know how long he'll be busy for?" she asked, her amber eyes narrowing dangerously at the man before her.

He shrugged one broad shoulder and leaned his chin into his hand, the ring on his finger glittering menacingly. "I couldn't say. I asked for something quite… complex, so it could be quite some time."

Frustrated, Jane huffed and looked around the alcove, worried that if she continued to look at the man she was going to just storm out. "What is this - some sort of waiting area?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his dark head incline slightly in affirmation. Letting out a frustrated breath, she crossed her arms over her chest and considered her options. She needed what she came there for, but she didn't like the idea of spending hours waiting for a shopkeeper in the company of a man who probably thought was worth less than the scum under his outrageously expensive shoes. Besides, the longer she stayed in this part of town, the more likely it was that something was going to go horribly awry.

But she needed what she came there for.

Jane felt his eyes on her form like a physical weight as she moved over to the empty chair and stiffly sat down, her gaze fixed firmly forward. She had no desire to speak to anyone she didn't absolutely have to while she was in this seedy area, especially when those people happened to be uppity purebloods. There was an uncomfortable silence hanging between them for a some time, but not nearly long enough for her, before he spoke again.

"Is this your first trip?" he smoothly asked.

Her arms tightened over her chest when he spoke, but she couldn't resist darting a glance at him from the corner of her eyes. Licking her lips, she quickly turned her eyes away again and archly replied, "What makes you say that?"

He made a soft, breathy sound, almost a chuckle, and if she had been looking she would have seen the flash of perfect white teeth as he smiled. "Despite that oversized cloak you have on," he answered with obvious amusement, "you look like a canary in a coal mine. I don't think I've seen a witch wear a sundress in this area since a ten year old girl wandered past the barrier some years ago."

Cheeks pickening, Jane finally looked away from the shelf she had been pretending to inspect to glare heatedly at him. He was lounging lazily in his chair as he gazed at her, looking for all the world like he was thoroughly enjoying her situation.

"I wasn't trying to fit in," she lied snippily, "I'm not exactly here to make friends."

The man cocked his head to one side lazily, his gaze never wavering from her rosy face. "I suppose that's for the best," he glibly agreed. "Although there's no harm in some chatting while we wait, is there?"

Her glare turned into a flat, unamused look as she settled back into the plush velvet cushions of her chair. "Really? I would think you would prefer your newspaper to chitchat."

A smile curled his thin lips upwards and the sight of it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention. The flickering flame of a candle caught the green of his eyes and the emerald on his finger at once, making her instincts stand at attention. He looked almost predatory as he sat there watching her, which had the unfortunate effect of tempering her annoyance into something more cautious.

She had momentarily forgotten where she was, as well as the minor fact that he was also there. Jane liked to think that her reasons for being there were legitimate, but she highly doubted his were as noble as hers were. For all she knew she could be sitting next to a necromancer, or a full-blown dark wizard.

The thought was especially alarming when he leaned closer to her chair, as if he was eager to have a good conversation with her.

"Come now," he murmured conspiratorily, "we may have hours to pass, Miss…"

"It's Madam, actually," she automatically corrected. Dark wizard or not, it was just as satisfying as ever to see the brief look of surprise on his handsome face.

"You have a mastery?" he asked, looking genuinely interested instead of just playful.

She nodded curtly and pretended to inspect the stitching on her sleeve. "I do."

There was silence for a moment, as he clearly expected her to elaborate, but when she seemed content to count every stitch, he prodded, "In what, exactly?"

A small, selfish part of her liked this moment best. Purebloods always underestimated her, so seeing the look of pure disbelief on their pinched faces when she told them exactly what she had made of herself never got old.

"In arithmancy," she replied, pausing just long enough for him to open his mouth to say something before she continued as casually as if she were commenting on the state of the economy, "curse breaking, apothecary, and my specialty, astronomy."

Her amber eyes slid away from her sleeve to catch his expression. She had expected to see some measure of shock on his face, but instead she saw nothing but narrow-eyed interest. His smile had vanished, only to be replaced by something intense and deeply unnerving. The weight of his gaze was like a physical thing, and she immediately regretted her arrogance. Clearly, it had not been the best idea to brag about her accomplishments to a potentially deranged stranger.

"What is your name, Madam?" he enquired curiously as she shifted in her seat. She glanced nervously at his face once more before looking away, feeling a mild sense of panic at the idea of telling this intense man who she was.

Well, it wasn't like she was anybody important outside of academic circles, but she didn't know if she was comfortable telling anyone in this area her true name. Who knew what that might attract? All one had to do was look up her name in the magical registry to find where she worked, and from there would be a breeze to find out where she lived. Her apartment was warded so well that she doubted an army could get in without her permission, but she didn't really like the idea of inviting that kind of trouble anywhere near her home or workplace.

She opened her mouth, fully prepared to tell him she preferred to remain anonymous, when she was saved by the shopkeeper waddling around the corner. Jane let out a silent sigh of relief when she spotted the small, overweight man, though he seemed less than pleased to see her. The brunette quickly stood up, eager to get what she came for and get out of this odd, powerful man's presence, but the shopkeeper quickly decided to ignore her and went straight for her companion.

"Your order, Master Laufeyson," he warbled in a high, irritating voice.

He had a small parcel wrapped in brown paper clutched in his pudgy hands and held it out as he bowed low to the dark-haired man. Her intense conversation partner slowly unfolded his long, lithe frame from his chair and plucked the package from him. Without so much as glancing at the prone form of the proprietor, he turned to Jane held out his hand to her.

"I must be off, Madam," he murmured with a little too much regret to be sincere.

Jane eyed his hand warily, once more noting the ring on his finger, before she very, very delicately placed her fingers in his. He gently turned her hand over and bent his large form over to press a chaste kiss to the backs of her fingers. She half expected to feel pain when he touched her, like any contact might taint her with whatever nefarious deeds he had done, but instead she felt a familiar tightening in her belly when their skin touched. Startled, she froze in place as he looked up at her through his thick, dark lashes.

"I'll see you soon."

It was all she could do to not jerk her hand back and shove it into her pocket, but she was blessedly released a moment later. With a grin, he turned and strode out of the alcove, his pitch black robes whipping behind him dramatically as he moved. She and the shopkeeper watched him go with similar bemused expressions, but after he disappeared behind an armoire, the proprietor finally turned to inspect her.

He seemed to look at her in a new light, his expression turning from dismissive to cautious, like she might actually be someone of importance after all - which only served to make her all the more nervous. If a moment of this Master Laufeyson's attention was enough to make this man who obviously saw his fair share of the strange and powerful pause, she might have managed to get herself into trouble without even trying.

The owner of the store peered at her with beady, watery eyes and in his high, reedy voice said, "And how may I help you today… Madam?"


	18. Head Shrinking II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clariss2838 asked: Hi, I'm a new follower, and I have to say I've loved everything I've read so far! ^^ Particularly the Skinny Dipping verse, I do hope that you continue it! If you're still taking prompts, could you do Loki asking Jane to prom AU? :D

Contrary to Doctor Worton's assessment, Loki had known what his and Jane's relationship really was for several years. Denial was not something he enjoyed indulging in, after all, and one would have had to be in the deepest depths of it to not acknowledge what had been brewing inside of him since at least his early adolescence.

As they drove back home from the clinic in relatively companionable silence, the raven haired man mused on the woman sitting in the passenger's seat. She was gazing out of the window thoughtfully, no doubt trying to digest the happenings of the day, and he couldn't help but wonder what her thoughts were. They were almost undeniably circling around him, but he craved confirmation - to hear her say that she was indeed ruminating on him just as he was doing for her.

As he expertly guided his sleek sports car home, Loki inwardly sighed.

"Tell me you are not still upset with me," he demanded, breaking the silence just to hear her say that all was well with them, that she was thinking of him fondly, and - hopefully - that she was going to cast out any feelings she still had for Donald.

Jane jumped slightly in her leather seat, her big brown eyes swinging toward him. "No," she slowly replied, sighing, as she turned her gaze back to the window, "I'm not mad at you, Loki."

Still unsatisfied, he frowned and quickly glanced at her. "Do you still love me?" he prodded, just as he had done almost all their lives when Jane sulked. Always she had answered with an affirmative, an exasperated sigh, and a hug that he was loath to let her end. But this time, she paused.

Startled, Loki shot her a worried look. He noted how she chewed her lip and how she looked paler than usual. Most of all, he noticed that she would not look at him. A white hot bolt of panic shot through him as he turned his eyes back to the road, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel with white-knuckled anxiety. His green eyes were slightly wider than usual, just barely showing the whites around his irises, giving him an almost wild appearance.

The seconds seemed to drag on for him. It was an eternity of uncertainty, as nothing existed but Jane and he could feel her slipping into the void. His heart began to beat faster as he waited for her to respond; all of his insecurities crushing in on him at once.

For all his life, there were only two people he felt who had ever loved him unconditionally. One was his dear mother, and the other was Jane.

When the world was an ugly, disgusting place, when Odin crushed his self esteem into dust, when he could not sleep, when he raged at the injustice of his place in his family, there had always been Jane. He could tell Jane what he could not tell his mother and Jane was the only one who could ever truly understand. The idea of losing her, of not hearing her say the words he needed her to say, brought on a bout of anxiety and panic so sharp he actually considered pulling over, lest he crash the car in the middle of a panic attack.

Finally, however, she spoke. Her voice was soft, almost childlike, but filled with something else that he couldn't identify that put his teeth on edge.

"I do love you, Loki." Still, she did not look at him.

Something wasn't right, but the words did ease the tightly wound ball of anxiousness in his belly a little bit. He wanted to press her for more, understand what was going in her head to make her sound so wrong, but he knew now was not the right time. It pained him, but for the moment he had to let it go.

.

None of the Odinson brood - this always included Jane, despite the lack of formal adoption - lived in the family home anymore, but spent their summers in the family townhouse. Well, Jane and Loki did, but Thor was almost constantly on the move; going from city to city, country to country with his rowdy band of friends. He only stopped by for a week at the very longest before he was off again on another adventure.

This suited Jane and Loki just fine, as they had similar interests and cohabitated well, despite their most recent troubles. Three times a week they had brunch with Frigga at their manor just outside of the city, and every Sunday they had dinner with both her and Odin. It was a good arrangement when they were getting along, but in this instance, it seemed to only make things worse.

When they got home, Jane and Loki went their separate ways. He watched as his closest companion walked away with a pensive look on her face, that icy feeling of dread still weighing heavily in his belly. He watched her until the door to her bedroom shut, then slowly made his way to his own room on the floor above hers.

He didn't see her for hours, which wasn't in itself unusual, but in this context only caused his worry to increase tenfold. And when she did not appear to have any plans to come down for even the smallest snack, Loki could not stand it anymore. He had respected her privacy and need for space for long enough. Now it was time for him to intervene and sort whatever mess Jane had made out.

Feeling a bit more confident than before and armed with Jane's favorite sandwich, Loki strode with determination to Jane's bedroom. Holding the plate with her dinner in one hand, he gave her door two quick, forceful knocks.

"Jane," he called, trying to sound as authoritative as possible. "Jane, I made you a sandwich. That means you have to open the door."

He heard some shuffling from behind the door, her socked feet scuffing against the polished wood floor as she slowly approached the door. For a moment it seemed as though she were not going to open it at all, but then it slowly cracked open, revealing her sweet heart-shaped face. Jane looked up at him with wide eyes, but for some reason did not open up her door wide enough for him to see anything besides her face, neck, and one shoulder.

Scowling, he shoved the plate in her direction, forcing her reach out and grab it lest it fall on the floor. It also forced her to let go of the door, which was exactly what he wanted. Using her momentary distraction to his advantage, Loki elbowed his way in, maneuvering her away from the door and back into her cluttered room.

"Loki!" she exclaimed, indignant, as he successfully barged his way into her space. The man turned to face her, scowling, and crossed his arms.

"I demand you end this sulking immediately," he announced with great feeling. "I do not like it at all. It is childish, it is unnecessary, and I will not stand for it, Jane."

Anger flashed across her expressive face, as well as disbelief. Jane dropped the plate on her desk carelessly and propped her hands on her hips, her sharp eyebrows pulled down into a deep furrow over her amber eyes. "I'm being childish?" she asked, seething. "You're the one who has been torturing me for weeks! I just wanted one night to myself so I could think about some stuff, Loki!"

His eyes narrowing dangerously, Loki took a step closer to her, his large frame towering over her much smaller one in a way that would have intimidated anybody else.

"You are keeping things from me, Jane!" he barked, suddenly furious with her. His temper was legendary, but he rarely let it flare when speaking to Jane. But he in this moment he felt the most precious thing in his life was being threatened, and that simply could not be allowed. He would get to the bottom of the issue here and now, even if that meant screaming at her until dawn.

Jane reacted in kind, her cheeks turning an angry crimson as she stepped forward, bringing them chest to chest. "I am allowed to keep things from you, Loki!"

"Since when?" he hissed dangerously, bringing them almost nose to nose. "Since when has that ever been allowed?"

The petite woman ground her teeth for a moment before she bit out, "Since you stopped caring about what makes me happy!"

Aghast. Offended. Hurt.

There wasn't a single word that accurately summed up what that one phrase made him feel. Loki reeled, his expression turning stunned as he jerked his head back. What in the world could have made her say something so foolish? What could make her think he did not do everything in his power to make her happy? But more importantly, what made her happier than him?

Jealousy bloomed in his chest like a cancer. It had always been there, every year getting a little bit bigger as Jane grew into a woman. The first time he felt it was at their junior prom, when she said yes to Fandral's extravagant proposal instead of quietly being his date, as he had assumed she would. The jealousy was so potent, so overwhelming, that it was one of the first times he could ever remember truly, wholeheartedly contemplating never speaking to Jane again.

But she had smiled so radiantly at him that night. She had been so beautiful in her cream evening gown, her hair in curls and Frigga's diamond studs in her ears. Despite being Fandral's date, she had danced nearly every dance with him, and when it ended, they laid on the roof of the manor together in their finery. They watched the stars and whispered to one another, their fingers, arms, and thighs brushing as they lay there.

He could not hate her, he could not cut her out, but that did not stop him from feeling that same jealousy over and over.

He felt it again when he ran into Donald as he was leaving Jane's dorm room the first time, but that time his fury had been directed at the intruder as well as Jane. But even then, he had not felt this way. Somewhere deep inside of him he had known that he still held Jane's heart. He was the one who could truly make her happy, even if she didn't know it.

But now she was saying he didn't care? That someone else could make her happier? It was like she had slit him open and left him there to bleed.

"And who does care, Jane?" he rasped, so choked with rage and hurt that he could barely get the words out. "Who could possibly care more than me? Who could ever love you more-"

The sentence did not get the chance to finish. So overwhelmed with emotion, with fury and jealousy and desire for her, the dam that had always held him back broke with no warning. There was no stopping it. Even if he could, he would not. It was years in the making - years of tension, of touches that lasted a fraction of a second too long, of jealousy and unspoken pacts. It was time and he was ready for the consequences.

Loki lunged, one hand slipping into the hair behind her head as he crushed his lips against hers. It was like a lightning strike, a bolt of electricity that was so hot and bright it sucked all the oxygen out of the room. He was blind and deaf to everything but her, his emotions, and the ecstatic release he felt when he finally got what he had desired for more years than he cared to remember.

He had expected her hands on him, her thin arms pushing him away, telling him firmly no, telling him to stop this madness. In all his musings, he had pictured that she would be the sensible one. She would want it, yes, but she was too smart, too good to continue down the path he desperately wanted to run down. He would always accept her refusal, he had told himself, because he could not live without her in his life, but he would at least have her for a brief, shining moment.

That isn't what happened.

Instead of those delicate hands pushing him away, scrabbling to put distance between them, they clutched at his shirt, pulled him ever closer. Her lips turned pliable beneath his, desperate even. The moment he realized what she was doing, that she was not refusing him like she should, Loki felt his anger leave him in a rush - replaced instead with an overwhelming wave of need and euphoria. His kiss softened into something more pleasurable, no longer the hard press of teeth and lips against her own, and his other hand came up to curl into her hair, as if he wanted to hold her in place and never let her go.

Jane tasted like cinnamon and coffee, like something forbidden but familiar, and everything in the world but her did not exist. There was no Odin nor Frigga, no Thor, no society who might look at them askance, no fear and no jealousy. There was simply Jane.

Their kisses seemed to last for hours, the moment so heady that when they finally parted Loki felt his head swim. Heart pounding, he crushed her dainty frame to his much larger one, her head tucked securely under his chin as he caged her to him with his arms. Eyes wide, expression wild, Loki breathed heavily.

Everything was different now and they both knew it.

Dragging his lips across the crown of her head, he sucked in a shaky breath and whispered her name.

She shook her head, her face buried in his crisp, cologne-scented shirt. Jane was breathing heavily too, her little form heaving with each breath. There were so many things to say, so much to talk about, but no words came out of her mouth - and he understood.

There was too much to say, so they would not say anything at all.


	19. Sleeping Malevolence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goldensillydragon suggested something about a mysterious cavern beneath an old house, which inspired me to do something very silly.
> 
> As always, any and all mistakes are mine, because these are unbeta'd and I usually write these in one sitting.

"What do you think it is?"

Erik squinted down into the hole in the kitchen floor of her new home. "Could be a cellar," he offered, shifting his weight onto his haunches as he glanced up at her. "They're not uncommon here, you know. Especially in these old houses."

Jane frowned, her hands resting on her bent knees and her long dark hair falling over one shoulder as she scrutinized the opening she had discovered under a few loose tiles. It seemed to be just her special brand of luck to have a gaping hole in the floor of her brand new abode. Well, it was new to her at least. She hadn't been in Iceland for a week yet and she had already blown out the power in her house twice, insulted her neighbor with a couple garbled Icelandic words, and now she found a giant hole in her kitchen.

"What do you think is down there?" she asked dubiously.

Erik shrugged and slowly stood up from his crouch. "Probably nothing. And if there is anything, it's most likely trash and old food."

The woman hummed and straightened, her arms crossing over her chest. "I should probably go down there and check things out." After all, it was her house now. It would be pretty irresponsible to just cover the thing up without at first making sure there wasn't anything that needed attending to down there.

That, and she was pretty damn curious.

Her mentor sent Jane a withering, flat look. "Jane," he began, taking on that lecturing, exasperated tone he used with her whenever she suggested something silly, "you should just cover it up and forget about it. You don't know if there's water down there, or if it's even structurally sound."

Squinting into the darkness, Jane had to admit that he had a point. For all she knew, she could be dropping into a giant nest of cobwebs and trash - and that didn't sound like too much of an adventure. "You're probably right," she conceded, giving the hole one last critical glance before turning around to face Erik. "Thanks for coming over to check it out, though."

Her aging mentor gave her one of his patented glib smiles and grabbed his thick coat off of the hook by the side door. "Well, how was I supposed to say no when you called saying you found a cave in your kitchen?"

Jane smiled and watched as he donned his coat, then his thick plaid scarf. A moment of anxiety gripped her as she remembered the fact that this would likely be the last time she saw him for a while. He was closer now than he ever had been, but he couldn't exactly take a flight to Reykjavik from Norway every time she needed something. This was her residency in Iceland, her research, and for at least a year her new home. Still, she would miss him terribly when he got on his plane in the morning.

"Now, you're sure you have everything you need?" he asked for the fifth time that night, his bushy brows drawing downward over his eyes with concern as he glanced around her small but cozy home.

"Besides a passing knowledge of Icelandic?" she said, only half joking.

Erik gave her a sympathetic look. "You'll pick it up quick," he kindly reassured her. "But you will call if something happens, right? I'm only a short flight or ferry ride away if you need anything."

"Of course I will," she told him, reaching out to give him a parting hug. "You'll be the first to know if I fall down that pit!"

Erik gave her a withering look, but after she quickly assured him that she had no plans to actually do that, they said their parting words and he left for his hotel. He had an early flight to catch, after all, and it was time for Jane to get comfortable in her new home by herself.

When the lights of his rental car finally disappeared, Jane sighed and drifted toward the stove, intent on making herself a cup of tea. The hole in her floor lay behind her as she put the kettle on. When the water was boiling, she pulled her favorite mug out of a cabinet above her and a tea bag, the hot water making steam condense on her dark kitchen window as she pour it. Tea in hand, she drifted over to the kitchen table where he laptop and various piles of notes had been set up, intent on getting to work.

She worked diligently for sometime, but every few minutes could not stop herself from glancing at that gaping hole in her tile floor. It was just beside her kitchen table and it looked quite ugly in her little kitchen. The edges of the stone that had been cut were ragged and it looked suspiciously deep. It really was a hazard, and the thing let a cool, damp draft in. Frowning, Jane looked away from her laptop and scooted her chair back a few inches to stare at it.

I really should just put the tile back, she thought, gazing into the shadowy depths of the cellar, or whatever it was.

But it was tantalizing, though. It was like moving into a house only to find an undiscovered room inside. One of course had the urge to at least peek in to see what might be in there. The scientist in her wanted to at least know what was down there, even if it was just icy water or old jars of food, but there was a practical part of her that knew that going down into a hole when there was no one around to help her get out was not the smartest idea.

Besides, she had told Erik she wouldn't. Of course, however, that had never stopped her before.

Twenty minutes later, after much waffling and then digging through boxes, Jane stood in front of the entrance to the cellar in her cherry red rain boots, a yellow rain slicker, a knitted beanie, her handy headlamp, and a determined look on her face. She would only be down there for a few minutes, she silently explained to both herself and Erik.

What's the worst that can happen, anyway?

Turning on her headlamp, the astrophysicist carefully lowered one foot onto what appeared to be a rough approximation of a ladder, then another, and then another. Slowly, she descended into the chilly darkness. It was a tight fit, only just wider than the breadth of her shoulders, and the ladder was made of thin, rusted metal.

The descent was a bit farther than she anticipated, which gave her some pause when she considered the foundation of her new home. I will definitely be having a conversation with my landlord, she inwardly grumbled as she very carefully lowered herself from the final step and onto the dirt floor. Fishing for the small flashlight in her pocket, Jane swallowed and looked around, praying she hadn't stumbled into some sort of torture chamber or something even more sinister.

With the light of her headlamp and her flashlight illuminating the space, however, Jane found herself a little disappointed.

"Huh," she said, frowning slightly, "I guess it really is just a cellar."

It was a medium sized room carved out of stone, the ceiling arched, and the walls lined with dusty shelves. There were what appeared to be a few ancient cans of food on the shelves and what looked like a first aid kit from the forties tossed haphazardly against a wall. There were certainly cobwebs, but little else that might cause her harm. Sighing, Jane moved to more closely inspect one of the dusty cans.

She supposed that she really shouldn't be disappointed, since finding something terrible under her kitchen floor would have meant quite a few headaches for her, but she couldn't help it. The scientist in her wanted to find something, but all she came across was canned sausage from the Cold War.

"Alright, Jane, you've been stupid enough for one evening," she quietly told herself, turning to leave the cellar. But as the lights from her flashlight and headlamp moved across the far wall, something caught her eye. It was a large crack running from above her head nearly to the ground. Intrigued, if only for structural integrity of her home, Jane moved closer to inspect it.

It appeared that someone had long ago tried to plaster over the crack, but it had been neglected for so long that when the brunette tentatively pressed her fingers against the edges, the plaster gave way with almost no resistance. Her fingertips met only cool, damp air, and her interest was piqued. Transferring her flashlight to her left hand, Jane began to feel around the crack, gradually making it bigger as it crumbled and flaked away. Chunks of rotted wood came away as well, falling around her gum boots on the dirty stone floor.

By the time the plaster finally gave way to stone, there was a hole roughly half her size in front of her. Whoever had made the cellar had apparently tried to create some sort of false wall, but it had been hastily erected with what appeared to be cheap, rotted wood and plaster. When Jane peered into the gaping hole, her headlamp illuminated a narrow shaft hacked into the stone in a way that seemed distinctly unfinished. It was as if someone meant to expand the cellar, but never got to smooth out the walls or widen the walkway into something more comfortable.

The astrophysicist gripped the edge of the hole and moved to squeeze herself inside, but paused mid-step. Erik's voice rang in the back of her mind and for just a moment she contemplated whether or not it was a good idea to go exploring mysterious underground caves beneath her house all by herself.

Well, of course it wasn't, she reasoned, moving the beam of her light around the narrow shaft. But she couldn't just not see what was at the end of the tunnel, could she? How could she be expected to just climb back up the ladder, cover up the hole, and go to bed knowing there was a mysterious corridor leading somewhere unknown just beneath her kitchen floor?

I'll be forgiven, Jane assured herself as she squeezed herself through the hole. Erik would do the same thing if he saw!

Armed with the assurance that what she was doing was perfectly reasonable, Jane began her slow journey down the tunnel. She didn't expect it to be very long, considering how small the cellar had been and the unfinished state it was in, but as the minutes ticked by, her ideas about the tunnel's purpose seemed less and less likely.

If it were in the United States, she might have guessed it was a prohibition tunnel, or maybe a more modern drug smuggler's den, but since her knowledge of Iceland's history lay mostly in volcanoes and Norse myths, she was at a loss as to what it could be.

After nearly twenty minutes of walking, she was just beginning to wonder if she should turn back and forget about the whole thing, but as she rounded another jagged curve, Jane began to feel the tingle of cold, wet air on her face. Deciding to press on, she walked a little bit faster, her form half hunched as the ceiling seemed to creep ever closer, like the builders had begun to lose their determination the farther they went. It was getting uncomfortable, but as she looked up from the ground after carefully stepping over a pile of sharp stones, Jane was startled to see a crude wooden door wedged into the shaft several feet in front of her.

When she reached it, the scientist carefully examined it, noting that it was made out of rough plywood that had been more or less shoved into the shape of the tunnel, a thick rope hung from the left side - presumably some sort of makeshift doorknob. It looked old, but certainly newer than the contents of her cellar. Even more mystified, Jane gave an experimental tug on the rope. It hardly moved, so she pocketed her flashlight and grabbed it with both hands, hoping to get a little more leverage despite the fact that she was hunched over and her fingers were nearly numb with the cold.

Using all of her strength, she pulled. At first, the door did not seem to want to move at all, but with one last heave, it gave way. With an unladylike grunt, she fell back onto the floor of the cave, the moldy wood of the door half on top of her. "Shit," she groaned, already feeling the bruises that would soon be decorating her ass.

Grumbling, Jane pushed what used to be the door up against the wall of the tunnel, her headlamp slightly askew. Scowling, she pulled it back down into place and sat up, her gaze immediately zeroing in on the opening she had created.

She had thought that it might lead outside, or perhaps to another person's cellar, but instead Jane was perplexed to see that it was something far more strange. Pale moonlight only barely lit the huge, ornately decorated cavern she was peering into, but her headlamp picked up the huge, looming figure in the center. Hardly believing her eyes, Jane scrambled up and through the doorway, her aching back pleased to finally be able to stand straight again.

Quickly pulling her flashlight out of her pocket, she immediately aimed it at the figure, her heart racing.

It was too big to be a real person, of course, but she was stunned to see that it was in fact an exquisitely carved statue on an equally grand dias made of mismatched stone. The statue was of a man - an almost effeminate, beautiful creature who wore layers of armor and fur, his body frozen in a powerful pose, as if he had been caught in the middle of making a command. His expression was deadly serious, his one upraised hand elegant but oddly clawed, as if he were originally carved holding something.

"Who would hide something like this?" she found herself asking aloud, appalled. It was an incredible piece of artwork, but it was as if it was not meant to be seen. Jane pointed her flashlight into the unseeing eyes of the statue, noting the incredible details like delicately carved, curving eyelashes and sharp, masculine lips. She didn't for the life of her know who the man was, but it seemed criminal for him to have gone so long unseen.

And covered in grime and dust, she added, frowning thoughtfully at the figure. The brunette eyed his face and then the dias he stood on critically, wondering if there was room for her to climb up.

Holding her flashlight between her teeth, Jane used his upraised arm and the groove of his opposite gauntlet for leverage to hoist herself up to his level. When she was standing securely between his legs, she took her flashlight out of her mouth and held it closer to his face. "I can't get you out of here," she told him, pulling the sleeve of her sweater over her hand, "but I can at least get a little of this dust off of you." Like a mother wiping melted chocolate off of a toddler's face, Jane began to gently but purposefully wipe some of the dirt and dust from the man's face.

The sleeve of her sweater would be filthy, but when she began to see the true beauty of the alabaster face, she couldn't bring herself to care. She gently brushed the aristocratic curve of his nose, the high angles of his cheekbones, and the deep-set, soulful eyes. It was an incredible work of art, she thought, sighing wistfully. She doubted there were many men on the planet quite as beautiful as this statue.

That's just so… so Jane, she thought with an exasperated roll of her eyes. The most beautiful man in the world stumbles into your lap and you can't have him not because of your appalling lack of social skills, but because he's actually made out of stone. Donald had certainly been stony in his lack of compassion outside of the hospital, but she rather thought she would prefer this statue to being back in that relationship.

What in god's name does that say about me, she thought, brushing her fingertips over the curve of his cheek as she pulled away.

With one last lingering, wistful look at the exquisite piece of artwork, Jane hopped off of dias and turned her back to it, her lights sweeping across the large room. They illuminated what appeared to be at least a hundred candles - some burnt into puddles on the stone floor, others appearing almost new, but all of them covered in at least a decade's worth of dust. There were other similarly confounding signs of habitation, like what appeared to be some sort of altar and over a dozen empty bottles of what was most likely liquor. Ever curious, Jane walked away from the statue to inspect the abandoned altar, her eyebrows nearly hitting her beanie when she got close enough to see what was on top of it.

This is like the nineties all over again, she thought, eyeing the rusted, dagger and crudely made rune stones on the small table. They looked more like theatre props than actual pagan tools, but the site of the dusty altar and all the booze made her have vivid flashbacks to the cult phobia she had grown up with in the nineties.

As Jane continued to inspect the altar, Jane completely missed the statue slowly lower its raised arm behind her.

Goddamn, I really need to work on my Icelandic, she grumbled, picking up a thin, leather-bound book from the table. Blowing off some of the dust, Jane cracked it open and aimed her flashlight at the pages. It looked old - older than the bottles of alcohol, at any rate. Scowling at the foreign words, she narrowed her eyes and tried to make some sense of it, completely unaware of the movement behind her.

As she inspected the book, she didn't notice the way color gradually seeped into the statue, nor the way it began to shift and stretch, as if it were waking up from a long nap. She didn't see those soulful eyes as they blinked for the first time in too many centuries, nor those elegant hands brushed raven hair, gleaming armor, and leather - as if they could not believe anything was real, that they were no longer stone.

She was oblivious to the way those eyes blinked, peering sightlessly into the darkness, and then swung to focus on her lit form.

The man who was a statue felt his heart beat again, felt the undiminished strength in his limbs, and as silent as a feline stepped down from the dias. He did not need the artificial light to see the odd form of the woman clearly, to make out her long, loose hair, to determine that she could only be as tall as his collar at best.

Jane was tucking the book into her pocket for further study when arms as strong as steel wrapped around her waist and shoulders from behind, drawing her backward with the enough force to almost lift her off her feet. She slammed back into a large, unmoving form, her breath knocked out of her, and blindly struggled to get free.

This was how she was going to die, she realized with an overwhelming bolt of panic. She was going to be killed by some cult in a cave, never to be found, all because she hadn't listened to Erik. She was pretty sure he had given her that exact speech in college, too.

"Now there," a voice of crushed velvet murmured in her ear, cold lips brushing against her skin, "no need to fight, little devotee. You've done your job admirably, and I would be most pleased to give you your just rewards."

Oh my god, Jane thought, heart racing with panic, he's not just crazy, he's insane. She opened her mouth to scream, to do something, but when her headlamp passed over the arm banded around her waist, Jane felt all the sound leave her throat.

A gauntlet of gleaming gold rested on top of a sleeve of supple black leather and emerald cotton, and below that was an elegant, aristocratic hand. The man wore the very same gauntlet she had used to hoist herself onto the dias, but this one was not carved of stone. It was very, very real, and so was the man behind her. Without thinking, Jane slowly turned her head to get a good look at the man who held her.

A regal profile greeted her, one with long, curling lashes and thin, masculine lips. But the expression he wore was not demanding. It was indulgent, charming, and very, very close to her.

"This… is not possible," she choked, her mind absolutely reeling.

"Oh, don't play coy, pet," he replied jovially, giving no warning before he spun her in his arms. Now facing him, Jane was pulled into an intimate embrace. "You must have known what you were doing!"

The statue is talking to me, she thought numbly. The statue is moving.

"I do understand your shock," he conceded, not waiting for her to reply. "After all, meeting your god must be quite the experience for a mortal, but you needn't be nervous. You have already proved yourself to be my most devoted follower, and for that you will be rewarded."

The statue is fucking talking to me!

He inspected her face, his eyes narrowing with annoyance when her headlamp got in his eyes. With only the narrowing of his eyes the light disappeared completely, leaving only the flashlight that had been knocked to the ground to illuminate the world around them.

When she still appeared too stunned to reply, he made a sympathetic expression and brought her stiff form closer, one hand coming up to stroke her hair. "After all these years, someone finally figured it out," he sighed out, pleased, "though I did not anticipate that it would be so difficult."

"Figured… what out?" Jane finally choked out, finally regaining some of her senses. She began to push away from the large man, wanting to be as far away from him as possible.

He frowned but let her go, his keen eyes watching her retreat critically. "The curse, of course," he replied, raising his eyebrows at the small woman who was watching him like he could attack her at any second.

Her expression only clouded with more confusion as she backed up against the altar. "What the hell are you talking about? Who are you?!"

Taken aback, the man stared at her like she had two heads for a moment. He looked as though he simply could not believe she would ask such a question. Lifting his chin and straightening his already regal stance, the man loomed over the tiny woman.

"I am Loki Laufeyson, god of all things mischief and magic," he announced with great self importance, "and you, pet, broke the curse that my enemies used to imprison me."

Staring at Loki with a pale, disbelieving expression, Jane tried to digest the insanity that had just come out of his mouth. "There is no way in hell you're-" she began, before her eyes finally adjusted well enough to see into the darkness over his shoulder. Instead of seeing the great form of the stunning statue, there was only the dias and the bottles and the dust. The statue had disappeared.

Jane's eyes snapped back to Loki, her stomach dropping to somewhere around her ankles. Any color that had been in her cheeks disappeared, and she briefly wondered if her fall in the tunnel had actually knocked her out and she was was just dreaming. Or maybe there's a volcanic vent somewhere and I'm slowly dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Loki inclined his regal head in her direction, a sharklike smile spreading across his face as he began to tick off the conditions of his curse on his fingers. "On the first night of the waning moon, a woman of marriageable age, of her own free will, must acknowledge her god, show her love for him, and be ready and willing to bear him his promised children." Ignoring her appalled expression, Loki lowered himself in a gallant, flourishing bow. "And so I am reborn."

"I have done… none of those things!" Jane exclaimed, scrambling away from the altar and away from the deranged god in front of her.

He looked indulgently at her, his emerald eyes gleaming with glee in the semi darkness. "Oh pet, but you have! It is the right phase of the moon, you do not wear the jewelry of a married woman, you came here uncoerced, you spoke to me, you caressed my cheek and cleaned my face, and you appear to be at a favorable time in your cycle to bear my children."

He stared at the shell-shocked, disbelieving woman in front of him with the utmost pleasure for a long moment before striding toward her, his arm wrapping around her waist with enough strength to ensure she could not wiggle away.

"Now then, sweetness, take me to your abode," he commanded, smiling with too much teeth, "and there we shall begin."


	20. A Contract

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: If you're still taking prompts can I request #7 (fake relationship au).

A young woman walked down a quiet, clean street in New York City, her black coat pulled tightly around her and her felt hat pulled down over her ears. A crumpled newspaper clipping was clutched tightly in her hand, and if anyone had bothered to look, they might have wondered why she had such an anxious, nervous look on her pretty face - although damn near everybody seemed to have an unhappy look to them these days. As it was, no one looked. Even in this swanky part of town, people seemed entirely focused on their own troubles - no different from the men and women camped out in Central Park.

At the thought of that dreadful place, Jane checked her old wristwatch, her feet moving faster when she saw the time. The chilly Autumn wind ruffled her skirt and seemed to blow right through her stockings, but she didn't have time to go back and put on her wool ones. Besides, the ad in the paper had asked for the women applying to look their best. She couldn't exactly show up wearing her lumpy, oatmeal colored stockings and favorite moth-eaten sweater.

But even in her best clothes, Jane felt out of place in this part of town. She glanced uneasily at the impeccable townhouses, the streets clean of beggars and trash, and at the festive decorations on the doors of the homes. It was like she had stepped into a place where the Depression did not exist, and it was dreadfully uncomfortable.

These people have no idea what life is like for the rest of the country, she thought grimly as she eyed the gold numbers on the houses. This was a place of old money and high society, and it seemed that they were quite content to ignore the misery permeating everyone beyond their doorstep. There were no soup lines, no able bodied and dead-eyed young men standing on corners begging for jobs. Although there was no physical gate keeping such things out, exactly, it seemed that everyone but the privileged new to keep away.

Although, she supposed that she couldn't really say anything, what with being in the position she was. If it weren't for the rich folk of the classy, old families, there would be one less job for her to interview for - which would bring her to approximately zero.

Lips set into a grim, bitter line, Jane turned a corner onto the street the building was supposedly on, her big brown eyes scanning the shiny numbers for a familiar one as she trudged up the slight hill. A young woman passed her, her delicate, gloved hands pushing a stroller down the immaculate sidewalk, but Jane pulled her drab gray hat down further, obscuring her face. Hunching her shoulders, the women passed each other silently.

It was not that Jane was ashamed of herself, necessarily. She was doing remarkably well, all things considered, but one glance at the woman's gleaming leather shoes and dainty white gloves buttoned with pearls made her insides burn with embarrassment. Not for herself, but for this apparently culturally tone-deaf young mother.

To wear such finery at a time like this, when so many children were starving in the streets and Hoovervilles were popping up in damn near every empty space across the country, it was shocking and embarrassing. Jane glanced over her shoulder as the woman continued on her merry way, her jaw locked uncomfortably as she eyed the fine fur of her coat and the colorful embroidery on her fashionable hat. Jane did not begrudge the wealthy for being wealthy, but for not even having the sense to be discreet and respectful to the vast majority who could barely even feed themselves.

"Shit," she hissed, glancing quickly at her watch. The brunette picked up her pace, her eyes jumping from one set of numbers to another. Five sixty-eight, five seventy, five seventy-two- ah ha! She put a hand atop her head to hold her hat in place and hurried towards the ritzy townhouse with its pristine white trim and emerald door. By the time she reached the stoop, her cheeks were pink with exertion and the chilly wind, but she tried to compose herself.

Nervously patting at her pinned hair, then the collar of her blouse, Jane swallowed and reached for the gaudy snake's head knocker. Her two knocks sounded timid even to her, and she was just considering the possibility that they had simply not been loud enough when the door swung open before her.

A elderly man in a crisp black suit loomed in the door, his arched nose lifted high in the air as he stared down at her with nearly palpable contempt. "You are late," he drawled, glaring down at her.

Jane stared up at the older man with a spark of irritation. She was barely five minutes late! And wasn't there other women applying for the job? Certainly her tardiness couldn't be too much of an issue when there were multiple people to interview!

Instead of saying any of this, however, Jane swallowed her irritation and reminded herself just how much she needed this job. "I apologize, sir," she demurred, "I was quite lost. I hope the position might still be available?"

Looking up through her considerable lashes at the man, she noted his quick appraisal of her person with a healthy dose of annoyance. Was any job worth being scrutinized like a hunk of beef?

The truth was, of course, yes. No job could be turned down these days.

After his quick inspection, she seemed to pass muster. "Very well, Miss…"

"Foster," she helpfully supplied as she was allowed her into the foyer.

"Miss Foster," he drawled without glancing down at her, "I am Mister Johanson, Master Laufeyson's butler." Jane trailed behind the butler as he quickly strode through the large townhouse, her eyes jumping from one ridiculous indulgence to another. Electric lights were in every corner, exotic, plush rugs covered the polished wooden floors, and everything else seemed to either be made of marble or mahogany. She marveled at the opulence, but for the exact same reason she had gawked at the woman on the street.

So many people are dying, she thought, barely listening to Mister Johanson. And the furniture alone in the house could feed ten families for a year.

"...will not tolerate anyone wasting his time, so I suggest you do as you're told and speak only when spoken to."

Jane snapped out of her bitter musings and quickly nodded when the butler's piercing blue eyes pinned her in place. They had stopped a few steps from a fancifully carved mahogany door, and she could not help but eye the almost sinister looking mythical creatures dancing across the polished wood. The butler lifted his hand, but instead of knocking on the door he extended it toward her, his bony fingers wiggling impatiently when she only stared blankly at him.

"Your coat, Miss Foster," he sniffed disdainfully.

"Oh, sorry," she muttered, quickly undoing the buttons of her worn winter jacket with nervous fingers. Shrugging out of it, Jane caught the brief look of disgust the man sent her outfit and her opinion of him somehow went lower. Her clothes weren't that bad! She had even borrowed one of Darcy's skirts, since all of hers had some sort of mechanical grease on them. It was a saucy red number that Jane wasn't usually one for wearing, but it certainly wasn't unfashionable!

Handing him her coat, Jane sent him a reflexive frown. She hoped that he wouldn't have a say in whether or not she was hired, because that look alone told her how much he thought she was worth. I could do mathematical circles around your posh little head, she inwardly growled.

Coat in hand, the butler gave her a dismissive look and gave the door two quick, sharp knocks. "Another candidate, my lord," he announced, his reedy voice slipping into something close to groveling.

Confused, Jane opened her mouth to ask why on God's green Earth he called his boss my lord when a smooth, cultured voice with an almost unidentifiable accent filed through the door. "Let her in, Johanson."

Jaw snapping shut with a dull click, the brunette watched as the butler grasped the handle and pulled the door open, standing aside to let her in. Jane sucked in a deep breath and stepped into the opulent study, her nerves jumping only slightly when the door shut sharply behind her. A quick glance around the room revealed that although it was the right time and day, there were no other candidates seated around - something that set her instincts on edge almost immediately.

She cautiously approached an immense oak desk, her eyes focused entirely on the back of the plush leather chair behind it.

What in the world is going on here?

Jane had heard the stories of course. The ones about young, desperate girls looking for work, only to be roped into such unsavory and dangerous jobs as prostitution. Everyone seemed to know a girl who was pregnant, living in the the red light district, or simply missing. It hadn't occurred to her that she could be stepping into a situation similar when she saw the address on the advertisement. It was foolish, she realized as she waited with bated breath for the chair to turn, to assume that the rich were not above exploiting the desperate.

"Your name."

Hyperaware of everything, Jane nearly jumped out of her skin when he finally spoke. There was the raspy sound of paper against paper, and she realized with a flash of irritation that he was actually reading instead of turning to interview her. If she didn't need the job so badly, she might have turned and walked out right then.

Striving for demure politeness, Jane forced herself to not grind out, "Jane Foster, sir."

He hummed, the low timbre of his voice rumbling in the opulent space. She shifted uncomfortably in her scuffed loafers, feeling every loose thread in her blouse and the unfashionable shape of her hat. Darcy had assured her that she was a looker, but compared to this luxury, Jane was sure she didn't look like anything more than a beggar.

"Your qualifications, Miss Foster?"

"I am an experienced assistant, sir, I am unmarried, I have no children, and I have graduated from University. Sir."

The paper rustling ceased. There was a small pause, and Jane was vindictively pleased to know that she had caught him off guard.

"...What university did you attend, Miss Foster?"

Smiling grimly at the high-backed chair as if it was personally responsible for the crimes of its owner, Jane straightened her spine. Her clothes were out of season. She had been living off of canned beans and porridge for nearly two weeks now. She had been evicted and was sleeping in what amounted to a shoebox on her friend's meagre dime - but this! This was something no one could take from her.

"Cornell, sir," she practically purred.

In all honesty, she did not expect him to turn around even after her admission. He seemed to enjoy the power the position gave him, and she comforted herself by picturing what he must look like on the other side of the padded leather. A long, hooked nose, perhaps. A bald head and moles everywhere. He would have uncomfortably red, shiny lips like a fish. And he would be wearing an extremely expensive but ill-fitting pinstripe suit over his luxury-fattened body.

It made her feel better to picture him as a hideous beast, so of course he had to go and ruin it by actually turning around.

He was, of course, the prettiest man she had ever seen and she immediately hated him for it. He was also staring at her with no less than a mountain of skepticism and that made her hate him even more.

Master Laufeyson's startling green eyes quickly scanned her from head to toe before settling on her face with great intensity. "You," he drawled, arching one dark brow skeptically, "went to Cornell University?"

It was foolish of her, but she decided that she didn't care if she insulted this pompous man anymore. She hadn't even been in his presence ten minutes and she already knew no job of his would be worth his biting derision.

"Yes," she ground out, her shoulders stiff and her spine ramrod straight. "I graduated two years ago with my doctorate in astrology." Those black brows seemed to crawl up his pale forehead, and Jane was grimly satisfied to see his fine hands lower a small sheaf of papers to his desk, forgotten.

The aristocrat slowly leaned back in his seat, one hand lifted to his chin thoughtfully as he scrutinized her. "And how do I know you are not lying, Miss Foster?" he inquired in his raspy baritone. "There are many desperate women out there. It is the easiest thing in the world to make up qualifications out of whole cloth when one is desperate."

He had a point, of course.

She was one of only a handful of women to have graduated from Cornell at all - and only the third to get a doctorate in the sciences since the first in nineteen-ten. There were other universities for women, of course, but they were far less prestigious than their male counterparts. If she had gone to Randall it would have sounded more plausible, she supposed, but she was not about to give up the one thing she had left to be proud of.

Nodding grudgingly, Jane answered, "You're right. I could very well be lying, but it would be foolish to oversell myself so much if I were. It would be much more convincing if I simply gave you a woman's college." She paused, the delicate curve of her mouth turning down into a frown. "It doesn't matter either way, of course. It's not like my studies are of consequence for the job you advertised."

He hummed thoughtfully, those keen eyes trained on her with something like interest. "You might be surprised, Miss Foster," he murmured, a slow smile spreading across his handsome face. All his teeth her perfectly straight and white and Jane hated him just that much more.

And then he just had to stand and make everything that much worse, didn't he.

He rose slowly from his plush seat, uncoiling a body that was impossibly tall and athletic and draped in a black suit so fine it could have paid her rent five times over. Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he rounded his desk to loom over her. A lock of his silky black hair fell delicately over his brow as he bent slightly to look at her more closely and Jane fought the urge to glare at the damn thing.

"My advertisement was quite vague," he explained, eyeing the line of her nose or perhaps the freckle on her cheek. "But since you seem moderately intelligent, I think I shall explain it to you in detail. You see, Miss Foster, I'm not in the need of an assistant, per se, but rather a… temporary sweetheart."

"Sweetheart," she repeated flatly, staring up into his handsome, pale face disbelievingly.

He nodded glibly, like that wasn't the oddest thing to say to someone. "My family is coming from overseas quite soon to meet my brother's fianceé, and so I am in the market for a temporary suitress who will satisfy my mother's rampant curiosity about my marital status." Master Laufeyson casually strode around her, eyeing her from every angle as she felt her cheeks and ears heat up - not with embarrassment or shame, but fury.

Seemingly unaware of how close he was standing to a ticking time bomb, he blithely continued, "Of course this position will pay very well and you'll be receiving plenty of perks in the way of making the ruse believable - such as a new wardrobe and an all expenses-paid townhouse for the extent of your employment. The job will not take such strenuous work as being an assistant, you will be relieved to know, and comes with a far more generous stipend."

"I'm sure," she growled, glaring up at him from under the brim of her hat as he finally came around to face her once more. "I think I know exactly what kind of work I'll be expected to do, Master Laufeyson."

Fake relationship my ass, she inwardly seethed. He just wants a kept women without the vows!

If he was surprised by her anger, he did exceptionally well at hiding it. He merely shrugged those wide shoulders in the most elegant way she had ever seen and waved a hand dismissively. "That, Miss Foster, is not a part of the job description." Staring down his long, aquiline nose at her, a rakish grin spread across his face. "Not unless you want it to, of course."

When it looked as though she were going to actually reach out and slap him, he actually, honest to goodness, laughed at her. It was a pleasant sound, infectious even, but all it did was make her want to hit him all the more. "A joke, Miss Foster," he breathed when his chuckles seemed to die down some.

"I assure you," he continued, clearly striving to look more sincere as he stared down at her with his lips twitching up at the corners, "you will not be expected to do anything sordid. All I expect is for you to play the part of my potential bride when it is called for - only once or twice, quite possibly, and only for my mother's enjoyment."

"How long would this temporary position be for?" she bit out, narrowing her eyes at him.

Standing a bit straighter, there was something in his expression that told her he was pleased she wasn't just walking out of the room.

"Six months," he replied easily, "and you would be paid to do practically nothing."

It was definitely too good to be true, she decided. Unless he's as insufferable as I think he is. Was such a cushy job truly worth having to put up with such an arrogant man for more than even an hour? She rather thought not, but…

Darcy could barely support herself, let alone her, and if she didn't find something in the next week Jane knew she would be out on the streets like so many others. That thought alone was a cold enough dose of ice water to temper her annoyance with the man before her.

If it was offered, no matter how unsavory it was, no matter how it may compromise her morals, could she truly afford to say no if such a job was offered?

No, she couldn't.

Gritting her teeth, Jane crossed her arms in front of her chest and sighed. "I can do the job," she told him, almost regretfully - because she really didn't want to.

"Oh, I am most certain you can," he replied, blindly reaching behind him for a small stack of papers and a pen, "and that is why I shall offer it to you, Miss Foster."

Holding the papers and pen out to her, he regally inclined his head towards her. "The terms of your employment. Six months, logdings in my second home, adequate clothing, and a very generous stipend - starting tomorrow."

Jane eyed the papers suspiciously as she slowly reached out and took them. They had clearly been drawn up by a solicitor, which was somewhat comforting, but when she actually saw the figure she would be paid she felt her heart lodge somewhere between her jaw and her collar bones. She could live well for years off of that kind of money!

Her big brown eyes darted up from the paper to the face of the man who offered it to her. He was looking at her expectantly, because of course he knew that there was no way she could refuse. Licking her lips, Jane slowly stepped around him and placed the papers on the desk, her hand lowering the pen to the page.

"I have one question, before I sign this," she said, looking up sharply to see him watching her with that same intense look in his eye. When he nodded for her to continue, she murmured, "How come there aren't any other girls here? There must have been dozens who qualified for this job of yours, but I'm the only one here."

He didn't smile, but his eyes did… something. They crinkled at the edges, and she could feel how pleased he was with her question. She could not possibly fathom why he would feel that way.

"You're right, Miss Foster," he answered, leaning his hip up against his opulent desk. "There were dozens, but most were turned away at the door by my butler for obvious reasons such as appearance or health. The ones who were let through were quickly dismissed when I found them… incompatible or simply lacking in mental faculties."

She didn't ask, but he continued anyway. "You, on the other hand, have more than sufficient intelligence, appear entertaining enough, and once you have proper clothing, you will be acceptably physically appealing." He shrugged those shoulders again and smiled that disconcerting smile, all charm and oozing sleeze.

It seemed so natural for him to dismiss people like that, to admit to turning away the desperate and hungry for such petty things like appearance or incompatibility. Jane dropped her eyes to the contract and swallowed with difficulty.

No, she couldn't turn this job down, but she desperately wanted to. This man seemed to be everything wrong with this country, with his class, and she wanted nothing more to rip up the contract and throw the shreds in his face. Instead, she silently signed her name on the line.

The way he was simply radiating triumph from over her shoulder made it feel like she was not just signing away six months of her time, but her good conscience as well.

I already know I'm going to regret this.


	21. Queenmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane, the queen of a backwater planet, is in need of a husband and an army. When the second son of the Allfather is put forward, she is no position to refuse. By custom they have never met face to face, but have spoken through a white veil. Unsurprisingly, things don’t go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: White Veil

 

If there was one thing Jane hated, it was galactic politics.

If it wasn’t the obscene amount of pomp that turned her stomach, it was the never-ending, mind-numbing, absolutely unchecked amount of _rules._ It wasn’t often that her planet had to attend the Galactic Senate, let alone wine and dine with the larger, more affluent royal families and respective rulers, but that didn’t stop her tutors from spending half of her lessons on the regulations, tax codes, and courtesies that ruled the galaxy.

Since she had come of age, however, Jane had for the most part disregarded everything her tutors tried to hammer into her. Her planet was small, out of the way, and had very little importance in the way of wealth and power in the larger scale of the galaxy. In the eyes of the major power players, Gliese was a backwater and her royal family hardly worth remembering. That meant that Jane, princess-turned-scholar, did not see why she would need any of those lessons. No one would ask her to speak on the Senate floor, and it wasn’t like she would ever be entangled in anything more than regional politics.

She was a relatively minor princess, anyway. Her title was more of a courtesy than anything else. Her father was the brother of the king, her mother a well-bred but no-name country lady, and when it came right down to it, Jane had never given a thought to inheriting the throne. It would go to her cousin, King Erik’s only son, with whom she had a distant sort of mutual affection. Finally of age, her uncle freed her to follow her scholarly pursuits, something he had encouraged as far back as when her parents were still alive.

Gliese was peaceful, prosperous, and blessed with long, clear nights perfect for stargazing. A planet of lush greenery and lakes as clear as the finest Asgardian crystal, her homeworld asked for little and expected even less. They hadn’t fought a war in three generations and generally stayed out of the sticky politics of the larger, more centrally-located worlds. Gliseans wanted nothing to do with Asgard’s expansionist policies, cared little for the meddling of Xandar and its federation, and as a neutral planet, had established itself as a haven for intellectuals and refugees.

Things were peaceful, until they weren’t.

Jane clenched her fists in the folds of her gown, her lovely golden skin ashen with nerves. The silk of her gown was cool and soft against her knuckles, like dipping her fingers in the water that flowed around her estate on a warm summer’s day what felt like a lifetime ago. Darcy, the sixth daughter of a minor family assigned to her household back when Jane was little more than an obscure royal family member, used her deft fingers to adjust the coronet on Jane’s brow. It was strange to not hear Darcy’s chattering, but even _she_ knew now was not the time for idle chit-chat.

The co-pilot of her star-yacht appeared in the doorway, his uniform neatly pressed and the emblem of Gliese proudly shining on his shoulder. He was older than she remembered him to be, way back when she used to cruise around the cosmos on clandestine trips with her uncle. But then, Erik had looked older than she had remembered the last time she saw him. War did that to people. “We’ll be touching down in a few moments, Your Majesty.”

Jane cleared her throat and Darcy stepped away. Her gown was heavy when she stood up from her seat, the yards of silk and embroidery cumbersome and a far cry from the loose gossamer and cotton dresses she was used to wearing. “Thank you, Captain Dohr.”

The old man bent at the waist in a quick, respectful bow, the heels of his boots clicking together before he straightened and turned to join his co-pilot in the cockpit. Jane watched him go. When the ends of his coat disappeared, she let out a long, measured breath and bit her lip. In the wide, circular window beside her, Asgard loomed.

“They’ve already agreed to your terms,” she muttered to herself. Her stomach clenched as she watched the great golden citadel rise, her yacht moving ever-closer to the place her life would end. “You can do this. You can do this.”

Darcy brushed her elbow, her buxom form swathed in the finery required of a queen’s maid of honor, and let out a huff. “Don’t talk to yourself in front of these guys,” Darcy reminded her, playfully nudging Jane with her elbow. “They might threaten to scrap the deal if they think you’ve got voices in your head or something.”

Jane canted her head to one side, a rueful smile crossing her face. “That wouldn’t be such a bad idea, you know.”

“Nah, it’s a terrible idea,” Darcy replied, “but I’m ready to act totally nuts if that’s the play you’re going with. Just give me the signal.”

Jane felt her lower lip wobble, but stubbornly held it still between her teeth. “I’m scared, Darcy,” she breathed, eyes trained on the gleaming palace that jutted up into the sky like the tip of a golden sword. “I’m so, _so_ scared.”

Darcy butted her shoulder against Jane’s with a huff. “What do you have to be scared of, Jane? Some beefy guys with hammers for brains? You could run circles around them. You’ve got to remember that.”

“I need to be _diplomatic,_ Darcy.”

“No, you actually _don’t,”_ Darcy replied, ever-practical in a way that only made sense to her. “You’ve already got what you need. If they want to play hardball or screw you or _whatever,_ you’re the one with all the cards. Be an asshole. What are they going to do about it? _They’re_ the ones that need our brains, not the other way around.”

“A queen can’t be an asshole, Darcy,” Jane replied, some of her frayed edges coming back together under Darcy’s ridiculous reasoning. Just talking to her helped soothe some of the nerves. “A queen has to put her people first, always.”

“Bullshit.”

_“Darcy.”_

“No, that’s bullshit, Jane,” she reiterated, rolling those big, dark eyes. Jabbing her finger at the window, and at the entourage of warriors in gilded armor that were slowly growing larger as their craft neared the landing spot, Darcy explained, “You think any of those lugs down there got to be where they are by being _nice_ all the time? Hell no. You’re the queen of _Gliese,_ you’re a certified genius, and you’ve got the temper of a wild animal. _Use it.”_

The sudden hum of their landing gear deploying made Jane shiver with dread. “You know I was never meant to be a queen, Darcy. I’m not cut out for this.”

There was a gentle lurch as the yacht touched down, then silence as the engines were cut. Jane felt like she was going to be sick all over her expensive dress.

The sound of footsteps approached as the rest of Jane’s entourage prepared themselves to meet the Asgardian escort, but Darcy held still for a moment longer. Her pale fingers reached out to smooth a lock of Jane’s chestnut hair behind her ear as she whispered, “Hey, idiot-genius, we get what we get. It’s up to us to make the best of our situation. Look at me: I’m just some nobody from the country. You think I signed up to be the queen’s maid of honor, to do all this work all the time? _Hell_ no. But I’m gonna do it because I love you. I mean, I may not do it _well-”_

Jane touched the back of Darcy’s hand, a nervous laugh bubbling in her throat. “I get it, Darcy. Thank you.”

Darcy grinned and lightly cuffed Jane’s shoulder. “You’re welcome, dummy. Now let’s go get you a husband!”

.

Her servants dispatched to the chambers she would make her own until the wedding and all but her most trusted guardsmen dispatched around the palace, Jane and Darcy were led by a stately elderly woman through the grand halls of the palace of the Aesir.

Jane expected to be led straight to the grand hall of the Allfather after leaving her yacht, but instead found her entourage escorted into more intimate antechamber. It was grand, just as everything was in Asgard, and hardly a single surface could be found that did not glitter or glow in some way. Great bolts of shimmering silk decorated the walls and hung in the open archways, gently swinging in the fragrant breeze. In the dome above their heads, she noted an intricate latticework of decorative spells that worked to create the illusion of a lush canopy of blooming flowers.

A low table of shiny brass sat in the sunniest part of the circular room. A distinctly Asgardian tea set glittered in the light from the archway, laden with all the traditional treats that any visiting noblewoman might expect. In one of the two chairs tucked beside the table sat a mature woman of creamy complexion dressed in an elegant gown of dove-gray silk, her great golden curls pinned up in a soft cloud at the back of her head. In the soft light of the mid-morning, she was resplendent.

Jane would have been a poor study indeed if she didn’t recognize the queen of Asgard at a glance. Drawing herself up to her full height, she forced a respectful smile and inclined her head. Only a year ago she would have been expected to bow low to someone of so lofty a rank, but no longer.

Frigga stood for her, something else that never would have happened in her days of obscurity, and offered a warm smile. “Jane, welcome to my home. We are so pleased to have you here.”

In an effort to stop any nervous fiddling, Jane folded her hands in front of her and replied, “It is an honor to be your guest, your majesty.”

Frigga held out one hand toward her, her milky forearm wrapped in delicate gauntlets of gold and floral filigree, as if she wished to take Jane’s hand in her own. “Come sit, dearest. You must be tired. Svea will take your maid to refresh herself while we chat.”

The urge to send Darcy a panicked look very nearly overcame her, but Jane held her ground. She expected to get on with the formalities, to sign contracts and make bargains and offer her life to a man she did not know, not have _tea_ with the queen. Jane was good at tests, but this felt like something close to a pop-quiz. Did Frigga expect to throw her off-kilter with this? Did she hope to get a different view of the woman who would marry her son in less than a week? If Jane got crumbs on her gown, or if she made a careless remark, would the famously protective mother send her packing?

_No,_ Jane reminded herself. _They need me more than I need them. If this is a test, then you need to be calm._

Jane tilted her chin in Darcy’s direction and said, “Go with her, Darcy, and please make sure everyone is settled.”

Darcy, aware of the scrutiny of the Asgardians in the room and actually _caring_ for once, offered a respectful curtsy and turned to follow Frigga’s maid out of the antechamber. A door shut quietly behind them, and then Jane and Frigga were alone.

Somewhere in the courtyard below the antechamber someone strummed a harp. Jane carefully picked up a small handful of her skirts and made an effort to walk gracefully toward the little table. Frigga reached for her as she neared, one lovely hand resting featherlightly on Jane’s elbow as murmured, “There’s no need to be nervous, Jane. I know this must seem difficult, but I truly am happy to have you here. Your uncle and I were friends long before I married.”

Jane tried not to shy away from her touch, but it took some effort. She didn’t want to hear anymore condolences. She didn’t want to talk about her uncle. She didn’t want to talk about anything other than the work that lay ahead, and the burden she was about to shoulder. Jane was a problem solver, a scholar. There was safety in academic distance, and she intended to keep it.

“I’m sorry you lost a friend,” she replied, choosing the safest route. “I have yet to meet someone who had an unkind word to say of him.”

Frigga watched her with eyes of old, wise hazel, her expression warm but otherwise unreadable. “Come sit, darling. We have much to discuss.”

_Darling._ Jane wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she found terms of endearment generally unsettling. _Am I a darling because I look young, or am I a darling because you’ve already forgotten my name?_

Perched on the edge of the little brass chair, Jane reminded herself to breathe. _There’s work to do. Don’t over-analyze._

When Frigga was seated and the cups were filled, Jane mustered all of the confidence she had to ask, “I don’t mean to offend, ma’am, but I thought when I first arrived I would see the Allfather first.”

Frigga smiled a small, mysterious smile into the swirling depths of her tea and replied, “All important business in the world is discussed between women over tea, Jane. Much more can be accomplished in an afternoon in a parlor than in a throne room.”

Jane sipped at her tea, her amber eyes raised over the rim of the delicate golden cup like she might unravel Frigga’s secrets with her force of will alone. “Is this a negotiation, then?”

“Hardly. I think the terms have been hammered out through our diplomats well enough.” Frigga shrugged one stately shoulder and Jane marveled at her grace. “No, I brought you here first because I wanted to see you for myself, as I’m sure you put together on your own. And I wanted to discuss with you the matter of my son.”

Ice flushed through Jane’s blood. Slowly lowering the cup back to the tabletop, Jane straightened her spine and carefully schooled her expression into something more placid than her usual open-book nature allowed. It was _absolutely_ a test, she decided, and Jane became acutely aware of the fact that it had started the moment Frigga laid eyes on her.

“I was told I would marry your second son,” she found herself saying, trying to keep hold on that creeping fear that the whole thing would be called off, that Frigga would deem her ill-suited, below her high-born son and Gliese would be left dangling in the wind, undefended.

_Calm. Calm, Jane. They need you. Remember, damnit. You’re more than your goddamn title._

“Loki,” Frigga breathed, nodding once with reverence. Her hazel eyes gleamed in the golden light and Jane wondered just _how_ close mother and son were. She didn’t think even her own mother had looked like that when speaking of her only daughter; like he was the center of her world. “My second son is Loki. He is the one the Allfather has intended for you.”

_The trickster. The magician. The liar._

Oh, Jane had heard the stories. She didn’t know anyone who hadn’t, not even on Gliese, but she dared not flinch with his mother mere inches away. Two weeks she sat with the knowledge that she was about to bind her life to a man known throughout the galaxy as a rake and a liar. Two weeks was long enough to no longer flinch at the sound of his name.

“That was my understanding, yes,” she replied, tucking her hands in her lap so that they would not be seen shaking. “And in return I will assist in the repair of your Bifrost as the Allfather sends aid in the defense of Gliese.”

“Of course, but that is not my concern.” Frigga waved a hand over the tea set and little treats rose up from their plates to find new homes in front of herself and her future daughter-in-law. Her eyes lowered, she added, “I am a queen, as you are, but more than that I am a mother. I wish to know what kind of woman my son intends to marry, and whether or not he will find happiness with her.”

Jane’s lips tightened. In another life she might have let herself scowl. “I understand, ma’am. As a mother, this must be difficult for you.”

“I understand that you do not have a mother,” Frigga said, those hazel eyes fixing on Jane’s face unflinchingly.

_Another test._ “I don’t.”

“Nor do you have a father.”

Jane’s fingers curled into a fist under the table, but she did not flinch. “I have no family, ma’am. Not anymore.”

“And what sort of woman are you, Jane Foster, Queen of Gliese, orphan?” It was not with malice that Frigga asked her questions, that much was clear. Her queries were cold, scientific, and lacking in derision. _Who are you? Are you worthy of my son?_

Jane could _do_ scientific. “I know that I could not have been the first choice for your son,” she replied, a familiar edge settling into her tone. No one took her seriously back home, not until she proved herself, not until she forced the scholars to see her work for its worth, not until she put the blasted crown on her head. Even then, Jane had always known who she was.

“I know that if you could have chosen, you would have found someone compatible with your son, someone whose pedigree matched his, someone who would keep him close to home.” Jane kept her gaze steady on Frigga’s face, whose porcelain features remained carefully unreadable. “I understand your desire to have what’s best for your son. It’s what I would want. But that is not the path that’s been chosen for us.

“I am all the things you say: an orphan, a woman who should never have become queen. My mother was a country noble who managed to catch the eye of the second son of a king. You ask what kind of woman I am.” Jane smiled, shook her head, and pressed her fingers against the beauty mark above her lip. “Your Majesty, people have been asking me that my whole life. My tutors, my maids, my uncle. I’ll give you the same answer I gave them: I am Jane. Just Jane. That’s all I am, and all I can offer.”

_And that’s the truth of it,_ she thought, a measure of relief easing the tight ball of anxiety in her chest. _If it’s not enough, then so be it. I can’t pretend to be anything other than I am. I’m not a good liar._

What impression her little speech made on the queen, Jane wasn’t sure. Frigga sat back in her seat and explained, “My son is most dear to me, Jane, but he is not an easy soul. He is restless and needy. A boy in turmoil, even when he was a babe, and it has blossomed into a difficult manhood. Would you be patient with him?”

Jane wished she could say yes, but she knew that would be a lie.

“I am not a patient woman, ma’am. I am bull-headed and quick-tempered.” The image of a lonely life yawned in front of her, a gaping trench walked alone, but Jane was no stranger to it. An unhappy marriage, a life alone; she had always just assumed that was what awaited her, anyway.

“I can’t promise it will be a happy marriage, but I _can_ promise you that I will do everything in my power to bring joy to his life, even if it means being apart.”

At this, Frigga’s brows dared raise in surprise. “You would offer my son his own, separate life?”

Jane, unable to stop herself, shrugged. “I have no intention of forcing a relationship that doesn’t work. For our mutual happiness, it seems wisest to offer him the choice. A life relatively untethered is not so great a gift to give.”

“You would be alone.”

“Yes.” Jane straightened her spine against the ornate chair, her expression steely. “Yes, I will be alone, but loneliness is a comfortable companion when you’ve known him long enough.”

Frigga was quiet for a time as she studied her guest. “That is not the life I would choose for my son,” she murmured, “but you are a wise woman to know that these things are not always in our control, nor for our best interest.”

Jane wasn’t sure if she passed the test or not, but when the queen of Asgard smiled a soft, closed-lip smile brushed with sadness, she thought that perhaps she hadn’t failed completely. Frigga slowly reached across the table and laid her hand palm up just beside Jane’s tea, a clear invitation. Breath held, Jane gently laid her hand in the queen’s. Her skin was hot to the touch, as if a star burned bright under her flawless skin. Jane wanted to flinch away from the heat of her, from that brilliance, but held steady.

“I see many futures turning on this axis,” Frigga told her in a strong, high voice, those hazel eyes blazing with the inner light of those rare few able to channel the winds of the cosmos. “I watch your path eagerly, Jane, and look forward to knowing you.”

.

Jane hated ritual. She hated superstition and the trappings of irrationality it came with. In this, as in many other ways, she found herself at odds with the Asgardians. They stood on their traditions like their mighty warhorses, threatening to ride roughshod over all who dare think differently.

If she were in her old life, if she were just an obscure princess sitting at her uncle’s table, discussing the universe late into the night as they so often did, she would have thought nothing of criticizing the chains they bound themselves in. _Courtdress required at all times, walk there, but don’t walk there, eat that but only in this very specific way, and for the love of all the cosmos, don’t you_ **_dare_ ** _try and sneak a glance at your future husband._

It was stifling, this lack of freedom. Even as a freshly minted queen, she was allowed to move about her people freely, to pursue her passions and walk wherever she wished, so long as she did her stately duties as well. In Asgard, it was as if they’d collared her, when by rights she should have been above the rules that shackled the ordinary nobility. Even Darcy, a relatively low-born woman, seemed to be having a better time of it than Jane. But that wasn’t altogether unusual, considering her disposition.

Above all, Jane found her ignorance of her bridegroom the most galling. She wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse to be hidden away from him until the very last moment, knowing his reputation, but a large part of her simply wanted to get the damn thing _over with._ She wasn’t lying when she told Frigga she had little patience for these things. If he was terrible, then she would see it for herself. It wasn’t like she could back out of the deal now, anyway.

As it was, tradition demanded that they meet only three times before their wedding, and never in such a way as to catch a glimpse of one another. This wouldn’t prove so frustrating if Jane _knew_ Loki beforehand, like most brides, but she had never so much as glimpsed outside of the usual propaganda Asgard put out into the universe. She had only the basics of his physical description to go on, and the rumors that dogged him like the traditional Asgardian cape.

Of course, when their first meeting came, it was a disaster.

Dressed in a fine muslin gown with her hair pulled back to enhance her silhouette, Jane waited in the room set aside for them. Strewn with cushions and sweetly-scented candles, her and Frigga’s ladies had deposited her there like an errant child. Frigga herself had pressed a kiss to her cheek just before she pulled the fine white curtain down in the arched doorway, her magic sealing it into an unbreakable barrier just thin enough to see the shadow of a human form on the other side. Neither Jane nor Loki could move it aside, but they could speak through it.

Jane glared at the damn, flimsy thing as she paced the little room, hands wringing and skirt brushing the ankles of her sensible boots with each pass. He was late. _But of course he is,_ she thought, bitter, _they didn’t lock him away like they did me. He gets to stroll up whenever he damn-well pleases._

She suspected she had been there for a little over an hour, lacking in any sort of entertainment expect her building annoyance with him, before Loki dared make an appearance on the other side of the veil. Jane stood well away from it, watching the shadows play across the fabric shrewdly, and listened as a booming voice filled the adjoining space.

“Brother, I send you off to meet your ravishing bride! I never thought I would see the day!” The voice fairly rattled her bones, but it was cheerful, lacking in the sting his words might have had otherwise. Jane, her back pressed against a carved pillar and her lips pressed into a thin, hard line, watched as this man’s silhouette solidified against the veil. He was _huge._ His arms alone were wider than her thighs.

_Typically Asgardian in all the best ways,_ she thought, rolling her eyes. _That’s the brother then. The one I’m not good enough to marry._

Why he came, she couldn’t fathom. This was supposed to be a private meeting, not a family gathering. All the same, Thor approached the veil until his nose nearly pressed against it, the outline of his body a clear, black shadow on its surface. _“Sister!”_ he boomed, one massive hand raised in salutation. “Sister Jane, come forward! I would meet the beauty my brother intends to marry!”

Jane scowled at him. “If it is beauty you wanted, perhaps you should have come an hour ago, when it was ready for you.”

A laugh cracked like lightning through the air, bright and loud. “Come forward, sister! Don’t be cross with your new brother.”

“I’ll be _cross_ with whomever I so choose,” she bit out, _“particularly_ men who should not be here. Unless it’s you that intends to marry me, your highness. In which case I will have to politely decline.”

Thor was silent for a handful of seconds, his great big hands on his hips, before he barked a laugh that was so annoyingly happy she wanted to hit him. His head turned, revealing a perfectly handsome profile, as he addressed an unseen companion. “Oh brother, she is almost as sharp-tongued as you are! Mother was right about her.”

Jane’s eyes scoured the rest of the veil, looking for the shadow of her future husband beside his brother, but he did not reveal himself. Frustrated, she peeled herself away from the pillar and approached the veil, hands on her hips and chin jutted forward. Thor’s head turned again and she saw his arm raise as if he were covering his heart. “By the Allfathers, you _are_ small. Are you sure you are grown, sister?”

_Oh,_ she wanted to hit him. “I am perhaps small in stature, but I can assure you I am more grown than you, _princeling.”_

Thor put up both of his hands in surrender. “I meant no offense, sister. Did I, brother?”

“No more than usual, I can assure you.” The voice came from somewhere to Thor’s left and Jane had to stop herself from snapping her head in its direction. Her heartbeat was going crazy, she realized. _That’s my husband’s voice._

“So you’ve decided to make an appearance, then?” she asked, striving for deadpan annoyance to cover up how jittery her nerves had suddenly made her.

“Of course not, your majesty. _That_ would be against the rules.”

Jane forced herself to breathe through her nose and counted backwards from five. What good would it do to start off a marriage, sham as it would be, with shouting at him? With her duties forefront in her mind, Jane reminded herself that the sooner they all got through this nonsense, the sooner they could go their separate ways.

Still, she couldn’t help one more jab. Sweetly, she asked, “And you would _never_ break rules, would you, your highness?”

Thor snorted, one tree-trunk arm snaking out to grab something from the shadows. Dragging another large, if narrower form in front of the veil, he slapped its back and chuckled. “Good luck with this one, brother! I’ll be waiting with the alcohol when you’ve finished!” With a cheerful little wave at her silhouette, he added, “I look forward to speaking more to you, sister! Don’t hurt my brother too badly, yes? He’s delicate.”

Jane watched his muscled shape gradually disappear as he walked farther away from the veil until it was gone. The door in the other room opened and shut, and then Jane was alone with her bridegroom.

They stood there for a long time, a tense quiet settling over the space as they examined the shape of one another through the veil. Jane dared not move her head as she looked him up and down, not wanting to give him any indication of where her eyes might settle.

He was tall, of course. Tall enough to completely dwarf her, but he lacked the unsettling _hugeness_ of his brother. Loki’s silhouette was more streamlined, more elegant, and she could just see the tip of a pointed chin and a wisp of hair escaping from behind his ear as he turned his head to peer at something she couldn’t see. It was difficult to get a full grasp on what his body looked like, as he was swathed in the many layers of leather and brocade Asgardians were so fond of, but then, she would be seeing that soon enough anyway.

Jane licked her lips and looked away, her annoyance fleeing her as sickness came dancing through her belly.

It was staggering how badly she wished she didn’t have to marry this stranger. Jane thought of Erik, thought of her cousin in his grave, and marveled at the arbitrary cruelty of fate.

“You’re nervous,” Loki announced in a voice all velvet and charm. “There’s no need to be. I can be good company, I’m told.”

_“Can_ be and _will_ be are two different things,” she pointed out.

“Too right.”

Jane swallowed. _Be patient. Be gracious. For the sake of everything you hold dear, at least_ **_try_ ** _to make this work._ “I apologize for my annoyance earlier,” she began, picking each word with care. “I am… this has been a tense time, as I’m sure you understand. I _am_ glad to finally speak to you, Prince Loki.”

His form shifted, belying a sort of liquid grace even as he merely changed his footing. Loki made a _tsking_ sound with his tongue. “Are you really?”

“Am I really what?”

His arms moved and she guessed he had them clasped behind his back. “Are you really glad to see me? I wouldn’t be. And I suspect you know I am not in so good a mood now, either. You can’t pretend to be ignorant of what this means for me.”

_So it’s like that, then. He won’t even give me a chance. So much for trying to make it work._

Jane tucked her hands behind her back, hiding her curled fists with her wide skirts. “Can’t I?”

It was almost impossible to read his body language when so much of him remained hidden, but it would have been difficult to miss the way he straightened his back like that, like someone were behind him slowly sliding a rod of steel down the column of his spine. He was already tall, but when he stood like that, feet apart and shoulders square, he looked like he could damn near step on her. “I am a prince of _Asgard,_ your majesty.”

“And I am the Queen of Gliese,” she retorted, face hot with anger. “I outrank you.”

He shrugged one wide, pointed shoulder. “I would rather be a prince in Asgard than a king of a backwater world.”

“And I would rather have a beggar as a husband than a man so blinded by his own ego!” Jane drew closer to the veil, wishing she could jab her finger right into that stupid Asgardian chest and _make_ him see. “A beggar would make a better king, too.”

Loki bent slightly at the waist, the shadow of his head drawing closer to hers, and she _wished_ she could see his face, if only so she could more accurately picture what it would look like if she punched it. When he spoke it sounded as if he were smiling. “At least then you would be better matched, hm?”

An inarticulate howl of rage threatened to explode out of her belly like a freshly-hatched dragonling, but Jane managed to wrangle it in. “Is this how you wish to start our marriage?” she asked, contempt lacing every word. “With _insults?”_

“Who said we were fighting? I was merely having a bit of fun.” Loki canted his head to one side, and she watched as another lock of hair escaped from behind the rounded tip of one ear. His hair was shorter than his brother’s; straight and black as a raven, if she recalled the photos she had seen correctly. “Pity, I thought for a moment you might prove amusing.”

Disgusted, Jane took one step back from the veil. “Then perhaps it is for the best that we spend our time apart,” she announced, a resigned sort of anger simmering in her belly. It was what she wanted, right? It wasn’t like she actually _hoped_ they would hit it off. That would have been foolish, girlhood nonsense.

“We only have three days before the wedding, your majesty,” he pointed out. Loki slid closer to the veil, as if he wished to follow her retreat. Jane was suddenly fiercely glad for its existence. “That’s not much time to spend apart.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Jane drew herself up to her full, pitiful height, the heavy weight of her braid swaying against her spine. Darcy had thought to wind a single golden ribbon through it, as if it might somehow make her more appealing through the preposterous sheet. As if a touch of gold might somehow inspire affection in a man who thought her unworthy of him.

_Damn foolishness._

Loki’s scrutiny was like a physical weight that pierced the magical boundary between them. His tone suddenly sharpened, he asked, “What _do_ you mean, your majesty?”

“If we are so incompatible, as we appear to be, then I have no plans of forcing your hand,” she explained, striving for a voice that was cool and unattached. “As I suspected - and told your mother - if we cannot at the very least be friends, then we will live separately. Once the wedding is done, you are released from me.”

Loki, who had nearly bent double as he followed her silhouette’s retreat, stood straight with such speed that she momentarily feared for the integrity of his spine. “You’ve made up your mind on this, then?”

Jane might have expected a measure of relief to leak into his tone, but certainly not the icy rage nearly chilled her to the core. One long-fingered hand came up to press against the veil, pushing it slightly inwards as if he might be able to reach her. The fabric held firm, as they both knew it would, and she wondered what exactly he intended to accomplish if it hadn’t.

“What other choice do I have? I could attempt to force you into my company, but I stand to gain nothing from that. You clearly have decided not to like me, your highness, and although we are both forced into this, we don’t have to be _miserable_ because of it.”

“You’ve not even _tried,”_ he pointed out, each word bitten off of the tip of his tongue. “It’s not I that has decided, it’s _you.”_

Jane blinked, baffled by his quick turn in demeanor. “I’m sorry, was it not _you_ who but a moment ago said I was inferior?”

“I was merely being honest,” he replied, sneering, “which is not something I so often make a habit of doing.”

“If you intended to _somehow_ win my favor by insulting me, you’ve woefully miscalculated, your highness. I don’t understand you at all. I would think my offer of your freedom would delight a man such as yourself.”

His hand pushed more firmly into the fabric of the veil; she could just make out the pale pink of his palm through it. Something about his looming form made her heart beat faster, but she held her ground a pace away from the archway. He couldn’t reach her through the barrier, and even if he could, he wouldn’t dare harm her.

“And what kind of man am I, _your majesty?”_

“The one being forced to marry me,” she shot back, grim and unmoved despite the nervous sweat dewing on the backs of her knees. “That’s all I need to know.”

Loki slowly drew his hand back. The veil fell back into place, hardly stretched at all. “I have no intention of living separately from my wife,” he told her, a quiet fury bubbling under each word. “Inferior or not, I intend to marry but once in my life. I expect the same commitment from my wife. And _unlike_ you, I was raised to expect an arranged marriage and make it work.”

“I will not be beholden to a man who treats me poorly,” Jane told him, fists trembling in the soft fabric of her gown. “I will _not.”_

“Then perhaps you should know the man before you judge him so harshly,” he snapped.

Jane had the clear vision that the entire plan, the precious deal she had sacrificed so much to make, everything that she did to protect her people, would crumble into nothing at this man’s feet. A relationship between them would never work. A moment of conversation was enough to prove them so violently incompatible that any union should be scrapped before it could begin.

_I failed,_ she realized, the prick of tears burning behind her eyelids. _I failed everybody. And it only took ten minutes._

She wanted to sink to her knees and cry into the soft fabric of her gown, to weep until there was nothing left of her, until the world forgot about her entirely, but crying in front of this man, this prince who thought he could insult her and demand things from her in the same breath, would have been an unbearable humiliation.

“I believe this meeting has gone on long enough,” she announced, biting back those treacherous tears. “There’s little else to be said.”  


Loki moved from foot to foot, as if he might move towards the veil again, but instead took one stiff step backwards. Sneering, he said, “Indeed. I bid you farewell, _your majesty.”_

She watched him go, just as she watched Thor disappear, and when he was really gone Jane knew she had but a precious few minutes before Darcy and her maids would come for her. She could be alone, really and truly, until then. Slowly, the Queen of Gliese sank onto her knees, her sweet muslin gown pooling on the cold marble floor, and wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to thank everyone who has sent me PMs and reviews with prompts!! Y’all are the real MVPs. I know it’s been an age since I updated (IW tho amirite???), and I don’t do the prompts in any particular order, but whenever I get a prompt I put it in my Google Doc so that I don’t lose it. So just because you may have sent it months (or years) ago, it doesn’t mean I ignored it or lost it. I plan on doing every prompt I get and completely encourage everyone to send me something! Right now I have twenty prompts in my queue, so have no fear - your fic will be posted eventually! And as a side note, I have cross-posted OHL to FF.Net, so if you prefer to read on that site, you can find it under my username or the fic title.
> 
> Also, I think some thank yous are in order for all of my incredible reviewers, but most especially Artemis Day, Vampi, L'Archange, and Lemomina - who write consistently lengthy, thoughtful, and wonderfully kind reviews. I always look forward to what you guys have to say when I post a new chapter and really, really appreciate the time you take to share your thoughts with me! I hope you guys (all of you) enjoy this one!!
> 
> I think this will turn into something of a three or four parter, so keep your eyes peeled.


	22. Skinny Dipping V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a certain fondness for cupboards. Jane just wants him to stop pulling her into them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: closet

 

 

If there was one place Loki could truly feel at home, it was in a cupboard. Dark, quiet, and the perfect place from which to leap out and terrify someone, his fondness for the small spaces overlooked by the average Aesir could not be overstated. It was in one of these nondescript little spaces that Loki waited for his prey.

 

His back pressed against the cool, unplastered stone, Loki patiently readied himself for the moment she tripped the silent proximity ward he’d set up just before the door. If asked, he would probably admit that,  _ no,  _ dragging Jane into a closet was not  _ strictly  _ necessary, but it was absolutely the most entertaining of the many options available to him. He knew she would be coming down the hall at any moment, anyway, because she always spent her mornings in the watchtower studying the myriad of instruments they kept for stargazing.

 

She would be distracted, as she normally was. That constantly churning brain would be moving at full speed as it tried to digest the massive influx of information she tried to inhale every second of her day. Happily for him, this left her more or less vulnerable to his shenanigans. 

 

Not to say that she wasn’t susceptible at any other time, as he proved with the night she spent in his quarters, drunk and curled up like a cat in front of his hearth, but it did make it that much easier for him. It would have been much more appropriate to do this in the sprawling gardens around the palace, he allowed, but such a deviation from her routine would have certainly made her suspicious. 

 

No, the hedge maze would have to wait. The cupboard would simply have to do.

 

Really, he didn’t have that much of a plan, per se, but he had motive. He knew he wanted her, and that she wanted him, and if cornering her in a small, dark space was the only way to make her concede to the inevitability of their liaison, then so be it. Not acting on it would have been a mistake, anyway. Eventually she would have fallen under the spell of a lesser Aesir, and that would have been an affront to both her and himself. Jane was a no one, a member of a handful of Midgardians sent to Asgard on a goodwill, cultural exchange mission, but he held her dignity as higher than most of the court.

 

Thinking about it in the dark of the cupboard, Loki frowned. He wasn’t sure when exactly that happened. Their casual friendship had begun as more of a reluctant tolerance for her insistent invasion of his most sacred spaces in the palace - mainly his favorite alcove in the library and her observatory - and somewhere along the way he ended up tucked away in a broom cupboard. Even worse, it wasn’t like he was the only one caught doing things below his rank for the mouthy Midgardian. He had caught his brother sitting with her in the Great Hall during mealtimes more than once, which was hardly proper protocol. Thor was overly fond of Jane, he thought, but he wasn’t exactly in any position to point that out. Even his mother, who by rights should never have had to meet someone so far below her, frequently made time in her busy schedule to invite Jane into her parlor to discuss…

 

Loki blinked. 

 

He didn’t actually know  _ what  _ they talked about. Thor would say “women’s business”, but Loki knew better than to assume the chatter of women was harmless. Frigga was just as cunning as he was, if not moreso, and Jane was just as dangerous. There was no end to the amount of damage she could do with that guileless irreverence of hers, that relentless pursuit of knowledge wrapped up in a form as fine-boned as a swan. The two of them  _ together  _ made him deeply suspicious.

 

Perhaps they spoke of curiosities, or maybe Frigga simply found her charming and enjoyed her company. But something told him there was more to the story than that and it annoyed him that he had let it slide past him for so long. He wouldn’t put it past his mother to know something he didn’t. Loki heartily disliked such meddling on the best of days, but something about Jane’s involvement made him squirm. 

 

_ Mother isn’t playing matchmaker again, is she?  _ He imagined his lady mother, in all her benevolence, wanting to keep one of her son’s only friends in Asgard for as long as possible by finding her a suitable husband in the guard, or maybe even the lesser nobility. The very idea turned his stomach.

 

_ Jane marrying some country duke. Bloody foolishness. She would be bored of him in a fortnight. _

 

The awareness tickled at the back of his neck, drawing his attention back to his current plan. He would have to shelve his curiosity for another time. Surely Jane would let slip what she spoke about with his lady mother soon enough. She was miserable at keeping secrets.

 

Loki leaned against the stone by the door, his hand on the knob, and held his breath. He could feel her little feet move through the web of his ward, coming ever closer. A cursory check let him know she was free of any books or scrolls, which was a blessing. He didn’t relish the idea of scattering thousand year old tomes across the floor. 

 

Jane rounded the corner just before the cupboard and Loki sprung his trap. One hand on the door and the other fisted in the back of her faded blouse, he grinned as she squawked with indignation and yanked her inside. The door snapped shut, a lock of his own making sealing them away from prying eyes. 

 

His prey crashed against him, all pitifully weak elbows and knees. A little fist landed somewhere near his kidney. “Greetings, Jane.”

 

“Are you  _ twelve?”  _ She was breathing hard. Loki, being significantly larger than she, took up most of the limited space in the cupboard, making it all the more difficult to untangle herself from him in order to deliver a proper kick to his stupid shin. Jane settled for battering him on the upper arms and chest with open-handed smacks. “You could have killed me! Who drags grown women into closets?”

 

“Are you grown?” Loki canted his head to one side, as if he needed to examine her thoroughly to be sure. “You’re so small, I thought perhaps you weren’t.”

Scowling, Jane huffed out a dry laugh. “So funny.  _ Definitely  _ haven’t heard that one from  _ any  _ Asgardians. You’re  _ so  _ clever.”

 

Loki  _ tsked  _ and pretended like he didn’t notice how she was squeezed up against him. If his arms casually wrapped around her waist, well, it wasn’t his fault. It  _ was  _ a small cupboard after all. “It’s an easy target. Much like yourself, I should point out. You should  _ really  _ be more aware of your surroundings, Jane.”

 

Jane decided then that standing on his stupid booted foot was the only decent revenge she could offer. But even when she wedged the entirety of her body weight on his toes, Loki remained unbothered. “You were waiting for me in a  _ closet,”  _ she groused, grinding her heel downward and definitely  _ not  _ thinking about where his hands were. “How could I have possibly done anything to stop you?”

 

“An Asgardian lady might have fought me off, but you hardly made an attempt.”

 

With her little pointed chin jutted out, Jane gave him a look of such pure contempt that it left him breathless. “An Asgardian lady would have you taken before your mother for misconduct, thank you very much. You’d be roasted.”

 

She was right, of course. If he dared do something like this with an Asgardian lady he didn’t have an understanding with, she would have been well within her rights to take him up for punishment. Technically speaking, Jane was an honorary citizen of Asgard for as long as her stay demanded, which meant that  _ she  _ could do the same.

 

Loki blinked. Since when did Jane know anything about the rules between the men and women of the nobility? She had never so much as shown the slightest bit of interest in court conduct before then, and it dismayed him to know that she might understand the boundaries he so frequently crossed with her. 

 

It was a horrifying thought, considering her new and unsettling relationship with his mother. Growing more suspicious, he asked, “Where did you hear that from? Has my mother been filling your head with nonsense, Jane?”

 

Jane squinted at him in the dark, her poor human eyesight trying to make sense of his expression in the dark. The tips of his fingers were pressed into the sliver of exposed skin between her t-shirt and jeans, and it brought back uncomfortable, foggy memories of dreams she still couldn’t shake. It didn’t help that the tiny space was filled to the brim with the smell of him, like well-oiled leather and mint. It hindered her ability to focus, which made it almost impossible to stay properly angry with him.

 

_ “ _ Don’t try and change the subject.  _ Why _ are we in a closet, Loki?”

 

Loki shifted his weight, the small movement successfully demonstrating how expertly plastered together they were when his muscled thigh slid slowly between her legs. She swallowed, trying to work out a plan to put some distance between them, but it was as if her limbs refused to cooperate as she tried to shift backwards against the opposite wall. Why was he so damn warm, too? He radiated heat like a furnace through the layers of leather and fabric he wore everyday.

 

Shelving his concerns about what her companions were telling her, Loki tried to get back to the matter at hand. He would be sure to speak to his mother at a later time. 

 

“I thought it would be a good place to talk,” he quipped.

 

“I talk to you everyday,” she pointed out, jabbing a finger into his ribs. “What are you really after?”

 

“You’re still avoiding me.”

 

Her hand stilled in surprise. Fingers pressed against the warm, supple leather of his tunic, she felt her mouth go dry. “Am not. And even if I was, that’s no reason to drag me into a closet.”

 

Loki turned slightly and those broad shoulders curled toward her, decreasing what little space there was between them until it was almost nonexistent. “You are. You can’t deny it. You’ve still got that dream on your mind and that’s why you’ve taken to halving the time we spend together.”

 

If Jane were in the mood to count small mercies, she would have added the fact that he thought it was merely  _ one  _ dream, rather than the near nightly event it really was, to the list. 

 

“Can’t you just let me be embarrassed about it for a while?” she sighed. And Jane had been  _ so  _ hoping they were past this after the night they spent drinking together. She didn’t exactly remember most of it, but she was pretty sure they’d hashed the whole thing out and moved on. Or that  _ he  _ had, anyway.  _ She _ still had to deal with her idiotic libido. 

 

_ And other things,  _ she thought with increasing dread.  _ I don’t like the way my stomach is doing that thing whenever we’re near each other lately.  _

 

Even in the dark, she could feel his heavy gaze on her, like he was trying to pick her apart, and it made her stomach clench in a treacherously familiar way. She had terrible taste in men and an unfortunate track record of failed relationships that were preluded by that very same feeling. Darcy once called it her  _ sixth sense,  _ and liked to blame it for Jane’s reluctance to date even the most respectable of men. 

 

_ “You’ve got the wires in your compass crossed,”  _ she’d said, ignoring the fact that compasses didn’t have any wires to speak of.  _ “It’s always pointing you in the wrong direction, get it?” _

 

Jane wasn’t too proud to admit that, despite the sloppy metaphor, Darcy was probably right.

 

“I don’t think you are embarrassed,” Loki told her, one large hand sliding up her ribs to span the width of her back. He carefully avoided any areas that might be out of bounds, if only for the sake of his hide. If things went sour and Jane decided to tell his mother, there would be little to save him except the technicalities of hand placement. “You are attracted to me and  _ still  _ looking for some minor courtier to distract yourself from it. I’ve seen you talking to guards and I disapprove. They are below your station.”

 

“That is  _ absolutely  _ none of your business!” Jane squirmed against him, utterly mortified, but his hand at her back and his leg between her thighs made it impossible to move around him, let alone leave. “I am  _ not-” _

 

“Jane, use that talented brain of yours for a moment.” Loki pressed slightly closer and slid his hand further upward to cradle the base of her skull. Unbound, her hair slid freely through his fingers. So unlike an Asgardian lady. “This is absurd. We are both adults. We can acknowledge these things to one another and still be friends.”

 

Jane shook her head as much as she was able, her stomach clenching. “Nope. Nope. Not doing this.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because!”

 

“That’s not an answer.”

 

“What exactly is that you’re saying we do?” she demanded, flushed and angry with herself for her terrible,  _ terrible  _ taste in men. “Are suggesting that I just get it out of my system? Because that is some freshman in college-level stupid. That  _ never  _ works.”

 

Loki sent her a bland look. “I don’t know what that means. But I do know it would certainly simplify things if we just got on with it.”

 

Jane, for lack of a better place to put them, rested her curled fists against his chest and tried to formulate an argument that didn’t want to come together. It was so hard to think things through when he had her locked in a goddamn closet, hand in her hair and his damn leg wedged _right where it shouldn’t be_. “You are _so_ stupid, Loki.”

 

“I’m going to have to disagree with you.”

 

“Of course you are.” Jane closed her eyes. Things  _ would  _ be easier if she could just get it out of her system and move on, but that was not how it would work. Sex never made things simpler, not on any planet. 

 

“Look, Loki, I appreciate the offer,” she began, striving to keep a cool head, “but it’s  _ not  _ a good idea. My original plan wasn’t great, okay? I can admit that, but this isn’t any better. I can’t just- just  _ sleep  _ with you. You’re a prince, for one. And an alien. And also I’m basically a diplomat and I’m  _ pretty  _ sure I’ll get in trouble if anyone on either side finds out we slept together.”

 

Lowering his head, Loki nudged the shell of her ear with the tip of his nose. “Tell me the real reason, Jane.”

 

He was  _ so  _ close and it was so wildly unfair that Jane wasn’t sure if she wanted to kiss him or throttle him. To get a little distance from that dangerous mouth, Jane tilted her head away from him and rested her temple on the slope of his shoulder. “You’re my friend, Loki,” she tiredly explained. “I don’t want to ruin that.”

 

“You already are,” he helpfully pointed out. “Avoiding me for something a version of me in your head did is not something a friend does. I’m merely offering you what your clever subconscious already wants.”

 

She wished she could explain to him that it wouldn’t be that easy, but she had no desire to disclose the private feelings she had begun to harbor for him after nearly a year of his company. He was a god, or as close to one as she would ever know, and she was just a human lucky enough to have a moment in the sunshine of his life. Realizing just how attached to the snarky prince was a jagged pill to swallow, but deluding herself into thinking they had a shot at…  _ something  _ would be far worse. 

 

Suddenly tired of the whole thing, of Loki and herself and  _ all of it,  _ Jane pressed her fists against Loki’s chest in a silent plea to just drop it. “Sex isn’t worth it,” she murmured. “It’s just not. Sorry, Loki.”

 

Loki did  _ not  _ like the turn the mood took. He expected that she would yield with only slight pressure, not crumble into this somber, self-sacrificing creature. 

 

Fingers curling into the silky hair at the base of her skull, Loki nudged her temple with his chin, urging her to look at him. Softly, he asked, “What about this upsets you so? I thought…”

 

Jane turned her head to say something, but he was so close that all she ended up with was her nose buried in the collar of his tunic just below his ear. His soft black hair ticked her brow as she tried to find some words that wouldn’t make more of a mess than she already had. “It’s not you, Loki. I’m sure we’d have… fun, I guess. It’s just that I don’t think we have the same priorities, the same cultural perspective. It would end in a mess.”

 

She could feel him turn his head to peer down that long nose at her, because  _ of course  _ he didn’t need any light to see perfectly well. “Cultural perspective.”

 

“Yes,” she stressed, hoping he was beginning to understand. Jane pulled her head off of his shoulder, narrowly avoiding a painful collision of their heads. Painful for her, at least. 

 

She could feel his breath on her face when he said, “I fail to see the issue, Jane. You want me, I want you. Why must you complicate things?”

 

_ Now there’s the question.  _ Jane nearly laughed outright. “Oh Loki,” she breathed, heart racing, “you must not know me well at all if you think I can stop myself from  _ complicating things.” _

 

Loki, ever the opportunist, lowered his head the last few inches and gently prodded her cheek with his nose. He watched her cinnamon brown eyes flutter involuntarily, instinct fighting with that churning, brilliant mind, and knew that the war was not yet lost. “You say I don’t share your priorities. You say we don’t have the same cultural perspective. I say that’s nonsense. We are compatible. We laugh together, we drink together, we eat together. This is merely a natural progression,” he whispered, brushing her cheek with his. 

 

With her eyes shut, Jane was hyper-aware of his skin on hers, of his low voice in her ear. Her very sound reasons for rejecting him were growing fainter with each passing moment, but still she fought it. “This will hurt me in the end,” she announced just as his lips trailed over the slope of her cheek to hover over her beauty mark. “I don’t do casual well, Loki. You have to know that.”

 

Loki stayed there, lips just a hairsbreadth from hers, and considered this. “Is this what holds you back, Jane?”

 

“Well,  _ yeah,”  _ she replied. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.”

 

“Then you must not know  _ me.”  _ Loki smiled and she could feel it against her lips. “I’ve lived nearly fifteen hundred of your years, Jane, and in all that time I have never done anything  _ casually. _ ”

 

Jane really wasn’t sure who closed the distance between them. It might have been him, but she was equally sure it was her. Perhaps they met in the middle, but the specifics weren’t important. It only took a fraction of a second for her to realize her dreams were woefully lacking in pertinent detail. With his thigh wedged between hers, he pressed her back against the stone wall and hoisted her upward, allowing him more access and thoroughly flustering her at the same time. His mouth was hot and efficient, coaxing her away from her fears with ease. Loki was right, of course. A kiss like that was anything but casual.

 

Jane curled her fingers in the hair by his ears and held on for dear life, the alarms in her head fading into blissful silence. She could always work on her compass later.  _ After. _

  
  



	23. Of Witches And Weeds II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Jane is on a road trip, GPS seems to glitch, it takes her somewhere unexpected

 

Jane curled one bare foot underneath her and relaxed into the worn cushions of her seat, both hands lightly grasping the steering wheel of her van. In the passenger's seat sat a heaping pile of junk food, a bag of sour cream and onion chips open and strapped in with the seatbelt like a child. Every few hundred feet her tires rolled, she would casually reach over and snag a handful. On the radio a soulful ballad played, reminding of long summer evenings with her father.

 

In the trunk, carefully sealed away in a charmed case, were her instruments and telescopes. Her wand sat in the cupholder at her elbow, gently rolling this way and that way depending on the curves of the road. She would have sealed it away in the case too, but it felt wrong to keep it out of easy reach. Besides, the interference it caused with her radio was mild and limited to little more than the occasional blip from a Swedish program long off of the air. 

 

Jane glanced at her GPS, checking to make sure it wasn’t glitching. One had to be careful with magic and technology. They were unhappy bedfellows on the best of days, but she had taken precautions. A radio was one thing, but microchips and LCD screens were quite another. Luckily, her self-designed case appeared to be doing its job of dampening the interference admirably well. 

 

Darcy had called her crazy when she announced her sabbatical, and laughed outright when Jane informed her that she intended to go on a cross-country roadtrip during that time. “Witches don’t drive,” she’d said, eyeing the beaten up old van outside Jane’s house with fascination. “Magic and machines don’t mix. What if you blow up?”

 

“I won’t blow up,” Jane told her, hands on her hips, “I have driven before, you know. My mom’s a muggle. I used to drive when I went home from school every summer.”

 

Darcy causally kicked a tire. “Yeah, but that was before you came of age and really let loose with all your magic. Plus, you plan on taking your entire lab with you. How is that not going to make you blow up? It does that just sitting in your house.”

 

“I’ve worked out a system.”

 

Squinting at her mentor, Darcy pushed up her glasses and accused, “You charmed something God never intended to be charmed, didn’t you?”

 

Jane could only smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Christ, is it the van?” Suddenly afraid, Darcy leapt away from the side of the vehicle and pointed an irate finger at Jane. “Did you charm the entire van, you mad muggle scientist? Were you about to let me blow up?”

 

_ “Of course  _ I didn’t charm the van,” Jane huffed, opening the back doors to show her in slightly grimy but otherwise innocuous insides of the vehicle. “I  _ told  _ you I could have gotten a retrofitted wizarding car, but I want to actually  _ drive.  _ I want to take a good, old fashioned muggle road trip.”

 

“But… why?”

 

Jane patted the door, the sleeves of her flannel shirt rustling in the warm breeze. “I just want to get away for awhile. Do some research on my own, away from the politics and the constant begging for funding. Is that so hard to believe?”

 

But of course it was hard to believe. Jane had never taken a day off in her life. She knew just as well as Darcy that her sudden decision to hit the road was wildly out of character. She also knew that her true reasons for it were not something she could explain to her erstwhile intern. Jane could hardly explain it to herself.

 

It wasn’t just that they’d slashed her funding. It wasn’t just that they thought she was nuts. It wasn’t even that she’d been reassigned. But Darcy couldn’t know that.

 

“And you’re  _ sure  _ you want to go alone?” Darcy crossed her arms, those dark brows lowered in consternation behind the thick rims of her glasses. “I could go with you, you know. I’m a  _ great  _ traveler. Once, when my friends and I went to Europe, we-”

 

“Darcy,” Jane interrupted, smiling, “I appreciate the offer, but there are two problems with that: One, you just spent the last ten minutes trying to convince me the van is going to blow me up into a thousand burning pieces. Two, you’ve never so much as sat in a car in your life, let alone gone on a  _ road trip.  _ You’d be miserable.”

 

“I’ve seen movies!” she protested. “You sit and listen to music and eat jerky and take a lot of pee breaks. I could totally do it. I pee  _ all  _ the time.”

 

Jane almost wished she could say yes. Having Darcy along would be a constant annoyance, but one she was used to. It  _ would  _ be nice to have company, but something in her gut told her it would be a mistake to drag Darcy along. Although Darcy spent the rest of the afternoon rehashing her protests, starting with the fact that she didn’t think Jane would actually remember to eat if she didn’t remind her everyday, Jane held firm. It was something she had to do on her own.

 

Two days later, with almost the entirety of her lab packed away in their carefully crafted cases and a single dufflebag for herself in the back, Jane set off. She told Darcy she was headed to San Francisco, but in reality the city was merely an arbitrary destination. She didn’t really know  _ where  _ she was going, only that she needed to go.

 

During the day she drove through long stretches of uninhabited country, the windows down and the van on cruise control, and at night she summoned her tent and worked in her roving laboratory, taking measurements and following the paths of the heavens and ley lines until sleep finally took her. She followed her GPS loosely, hoping to stumble on the source of that nagging feeling in the back of her mind she had lived with for six months. 

 

It started out as nothing, really. A bit like the itchy feeling one gets when they’ve rushed out of the house  _ knowing  _ they’ve forgotten something. It was hardly worth dwelling on. After all, she was always preoccupied with her research on interdimensional travel and atmospheric anomalies, with her painful lack of funding, with the cursebreaking she did on the side to supplement her income. Stress did funny things to the brain. If she felt a little forgetful, or like someone was constantly just behind her, urging her to turn around and notice them, well, it just came with being an adult. 

 

It was all very normal, until one day it wasn’t. Jane, being a seasoned and well-educated witch, was used to the strange and sometimes unexplainable happenings of her life. What she  _ wasn’t  _ used to were visions. 

 

A handful of months after the feeling of being watched began to creep into her life, the already pitiful funding for her work was swept out from under her.  _ Budget cuts,  _ they’d said.  _ Lack of progress,  _ they’d claimed. Just thinking about it made her blood boil. 

 

If they paid any attention to her work at all they would see that atmospheric activity had been at a startling increase in the past several months. They would  _ see  _ that the activity stood the chance of affecting not only ley lines, but whole magical communities. If they just  _ looked,  _ they would see how  _ close  _ she was to understanding the source of the influx of energy, and how to harness it.

 

But of course they didn’t. And then the visions, that unshakable compulsion to  _ go,  _ to  _ find,  _ came. 

 

Jane reached for another fistful of chips, her eyes on the road as it stretched out ahead of her. All around her were lush green mountains, ribbons of silky gray rivers winding around them, and the road was freshly paved and empty save for her trundling van. A sweet, fragrant breeze passed through her open windows, tossing her hair up and around her. The GPS pinged, alerting her to a turn, and she dutifully followed its instructions. 

 

Being angry wouldn’t change their minds. She’d tried that already and all it did was get her re-assigned to a civic development unit of the Magical Congress.  _ Work on making our wards safer,  _ they’d told her,  _ stop chasing lights in the sky and actually put that brain to use.  _

 

Like that wasn’t what she was already  _ doing.  _ The atmospheric phenomena had the potential to disrupt the entire foundation of magical society. How many of their wards, how many of their disguises, how many of their muggle precautions would suddenly fail if the fundamental spellwork holding them together were suddenly disrupted?

 

_ Idiots. _

 

Her GPS pinged again, telling her to take a left at the upcoming fork in the road. All around her the trees were beginning to lean closer together, their leafy canopies reaching for one another over the thin sliver of road. Tennessee was a wild country full of undulating hills so thickly carpeted with greenery that she wondered whether or not people could simply step into the treeline and be sucked in, never to be seen again. At night, when she peered through her charmed telescopes and whirling instruments, restlessly searching for that answer that eluded her, Jane could swear the trees were watching her, their roots moving through the soil by inches, ready to swallow her up.

 

The GPS chimed.  _ Right turn. _

 

Jane glanced at the little mounted screen on her dash, a prickle of unease drawing her attention away from the road. She could have sworn she was supposed to stay on the highway. The device was programmed to take her on the most direct route to San Francisco. She  _ had  _ taken a few detours since she left the the northern states, but Jane was  _ sure  _ she should have remained on the main highway. 

 

Sliding her bare foot out from under her, Jane gripped the steering wheel more tightly, a frown creasing her face. Exactly how far off the highway  _ was  _ she? 

 

Apparently far enough to make the usual road paraphernalia few and far between. She couldn’t be sure what road she was on because there were no  _ signs.  _ An icy feeling trickling into her belly, Jane glanced at her wand, checking to make sure it was still there in the cupholder. 

 

Knuckles going white against the worn steering wheel, Jane gritted her teeth and thought,  _ Not now. Please not now. _

 

A familiar awareness crept over her, muting the crooning voices of the radio and the wind swirling in the cab of the van. Breathing deeply and trying not to panic, Jane managed to pull off to the narrow shoulder just before the familiar whorls of inky black crept along the corners of her vision. 

 

_ Breathe,  _ she reminded herself,  _ breathe. It’ll pass.  _

 

She pressed her forehead against the wheel and squeezed her eyes shut. Jane didn’t want to see the world cast in red and black, but a part of her knew, somehow, that her visions were worsening, becoming more frequent only because she was drawing closer to their source. It was as if they were trying to tell her to keep going, to drive just a bit farther. But she couldn’t trust herself to drive when panic swept over her. Jane knew from experience that the visions were mostly harmless, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t accidentally drive herself into a river in the middle of one.

 

Her GPS pinged again. And again. And  _ again.  _

 

Jane reluctantly pried her eyes open, well aware that the worst of the vision had yet to pass, and peered at the little device through the haze of crimson and swirling ink. She could practically see through it, could examine its base elements and the currents of electricity that brought it to life, an ability she discovered relatively quickly after the initial onslaught of visions. Jane watched the screen flicker once, twice, a third time, each time refreshing itself with a pop-up that demanded she turn left.

 

_ Left here. Left here. Left here. _

 

Frustrated, Jane swiped a hand over the screen. The GPS let out an unsettling  _ pop  _ and went black, the red currents of electricity within it dying. Straightening her back, Jane plucked up the courage to look out the windshield. 

 

The world outside looked nothing like the one she had just driven through. It had expanded, its layers multiplied, even as the rich colors bled away into shades of black and red. With this sight, Jane could really see that the trees  _ were  _ alive, their roots dug like great, formless claws into the soil, their trunks and branches pulsating with the crimson energy of life. Overhead and through the windshield, Jane could make out the tracks of thousands of airplanes long gone in the air, something normally invisible to the naked eye. And on the road, bisecting its evenly paved center, she could see a flickering stripe of brilliant red. It stretched along the pavement until it came to another fork in the road, at which point it turned sharply left.

 

That was… new. Jane stared hard at the line, trying to decipher its meaning as her heart beat a wild staccato in her chest. She had been on the road nearly two weeks as she meandered her way through the states, but never had her visions given her any sort of  _ direction.  _

 

On her dash, the GPS crackled back to life.  _ “In one hundred feet, take the next left,” _ a mechanical voice coolly instructed, as if it had any right to do so when Jane was  _ certain  _ her GPS did not have a voice function. 

 

“I’ve lost my mind,” she concluded, putting the van back in drive. “It finally happened. I’ve gone nuts.”

 

Jane drove slowly, but followed the strip of flickering crimson all the same. Reaching over to the cupholders, she groped for her wand, looking for some reassurance in its black walnut wood. Her vision seemed to sharpen when she held it, but the red refused to fade. 

 

_ “Turn here,” _ the GPS instructed, dispassionate. _ “Turn here now.” _

 

Jane swallowed. She turned left.

 

Gradually the road began to roughen, potholes appearing with more frequency until the pavement fell away altogether and gave way to hard, packed earth. Her van trundled ahead dutifully, the crimson line held steady, and Jane gritted her teeth against the unsettling rocking of her old vehicle. The anticipation of what may await her at the end of the line made her want to speed ahead, to put her foot down on the gas and  _ go,  _ but it also made her want to leap out of the van and run in the opposite direction.  

 

_ Is this it?  _ Some part of her wondered if she was ready to see the end of six months worth of wondering, of research and few answers. Curiosity was so much a part of her, each stitch of her soul sewn with it, but she was hardly  _ foolish.  _

 

Jane knew what could await her at the end of the road.  _ Death, or worse. _

 

Abruptly, the trees cleared and her van skidded to a halt at the end of the dirt road. Ahead, an old, rusted fence blocked her way. Breathing heavily, Jane tried to gather some shred of calm even as she gripped her wand so tightly she could feel her nails curling into the skin of her palm. 

 

She quickly summoned her discarded boots and laced them on, her heart hammering. The breeze was sweet and cool on her feverish skin as she leapt out of the van and onto the uneven earth. Her boots crunched in leafy detritus, the evidence of a long-neglected path. The only tracks in the dirt belonged to her own tires, and when she cautiously swept her wand over the fence, she found no evidence of wards or charms to keep magical folk out. 

 

A quick  _ alohomora  _ unwound the thickly rusted chain and lock. Her vision had begun to gradually fade back to normalcy, as it usually did, but the more distance she put between herself and her van, the more it felt like someone was standing just behind her, a steady hand just hovering over her shoulder. 

 

_ Go,  _ it seemed to say, prodding.  _ Go ahead. _

 

Jane pushed the stiff old gate aside and set out at a quick trot down the neglected driveway, her senses straining for any clue that might lead her…  _ wherever.  _ Ahead of her, the road opened up to a wide, roughly square clearing. A long abandoned homestead sat in the far corner, along with an aging aluminum silo and a half-fallen down barn. A rusted old Chevy sat in the dirt, half swallowed by vines, and watched her with its big, sad headlights as she inched up the the driveway. Aside from the usual disquiet of an abandoned place, nothing about it seemed out of the ordinary. 

 

That feeling still prickling at the back of her neck, Jane hustled toward the front door of the little house. With its peeling paint and broken windows, it was clear that it had long ago been stripped of anything of value. Her boots sank into the old, weathered porch in a way that spoke of termites and neglect. The door was jammed, warped in the door jam after so many wet winters and hot summers, but that was hardly a problem for a witch. A flick of her wand and some clever work with her shoulder later, Jane managed to pry the warped wood open, the rusty hinges squealing in protest. 

 

In the entryway, the light streamed through the broken windows, illuminating the rot of what was once a fine farmhouse. Scuttling in the walls and the occasional chirp reminded Jane that she certainly wasn’t the only one wandering the house. Glass crunched under her boots, a sickly sound in the unhappy quiet of an abandoned place. Holding her wand aloft, she breathed in the musty smell of rotting curtains and mouldy furniture and decay. She pressed on.

 

_ Why am I doing this?  _

 

Jane wished she could give herself a satisfactory answer. Some rational,  _ real  _ answer to why she was out in the middle of nowhere, wandering through an abandoned house at the whim of some unnamed force ready to steer her in the direction of certain doom. 

 

But what else could she do? Just  _ not  _ find the answers to her questions? Jane would sooner give up her wand than stop searching for truth in the universe.

 

Wand up and lit, Jane watched each step with care, her boots placed precisely between the seams of the floorboards, and stiffened her spine.  _ This is it,  _ she swore to herself.  _ I’m getting my answers here. Whatever happens, I’m going to know. _

 

In the kitchen, Jane found an overturned refrigerator from the fifties and a half-caved in roof, but no answers. The master bedroom, relatively small by today’s standards, showed the remains of several misbegotten birds and the detritus of passing drifters, but had nothing by way of information. Every room, every corner, of the ramshackle farmhouse felt alive, aware of her as she passed from one place to another. In its sagging lines and crumbling corners, Jane did not find malice, but the weary patience of aged anger. It sat like sap on her skin, sticky and unnatural, growing strong with each footfall.

 

It was in the living room, or what was once the living room, where Jane met the source of the sickly feeling.

 

Bedecked in peeling, mouldy wallpaper that was once dotted with sweet clusters of flowers, the space was the most well-preserved of the decayed little homestead. Only a single window pane was broken, letting in the branch of a young sapling growing just outside, and Jane even spotted several dusty knicknacks over the long-unused fireplace, somehow left untouched by looters. If there was anything truly strange about the whole setup, it was that the furniture appeared to be arranged in a rough semicircle facing an unadorned wall, as if a family had just gotten up and left in the middle of watching a movie on a mounted television. 

 

Except the television happened to be on its side, the little black screen smashed in, well behind the chairs on the other side of the room.

 

Jane took one step past the doorway and immediately understood why.

 

It was as if she had walked into a wall of pure, ancient magic. It sucked up the air in the room like some great beast, its strength and awareness a violent assault on her human senses. Stumbling back, Jane gripped the doorframe and fought to stay standing, her stomach roiling in distress. 

 

Wand up and out in a defensive position, Jane managed to run a cursory diagnostic spell on the space. She wasn’t a part-time cursebreaker for nothing, after all. And she was a  _ good  _ one, at that. That was where the real money was, and although her love lay in her research, she knew she had one hell of a knack for unwinding curses and ancient spells. She had seen her fair share of cursed objects, of warded vaults and murdering jewellry. 

 

Even so, Jane had never encountered something like  _ this. _ It’s presence hung so heavily in the room that even  _ muggles  _ would feel it, which left little doubt as to why the room had been relatively undisturbed. It explained the house, too. Magic like that - it ran deep and wide, tapping ley lines and sending wouldbe settlers scattering. It was amazing that people had been able to stand it long enough to  _ build  _ a house, let alone stay in it. 

 

Magic like that could drive a person mad, muggle or no. It could reach inside you and rifle with your neurons, with the core of your very being, until you were nothing but a drooling mass of gray matter and bile. 

 

It was old, it was massive, and it was  _ reaching _ for her. 

 

_ “Shit!”  _

 

Jane scrambled to hold onto the doorframe, all of the counter-curses and spells she knew evading her as her feet began to slide across the dingy floor. A hastily cast sticking charm did nothing to stop her forward momentum, of course. Neither did a banishment spell, or any of the thousands of other jinxes and charms and enchantments she knew. The force pulled her in, forcing her to release the doorframe or risk dislocating her arm, and dragged her past the semicircle of furniture towards the empty wall as surely as a rope looped around her middle. 

 

“Fuck, fuck!” She reached for the armchair closest to her, but she never made it. 

 

The air in front of her warped, tearing and sparking like the very fabric of reality couldn’t hold up against the onslaught. The smell of burning ozone filled her lungs, unnatural as the magic itself. It wasn’t unlike watching someone else apparate, she thought, at once fascinated and horror-stricken, except for the  _ scale. _ Whatever force dwelled in that house was, it had the ability to twist magic into its simplest and most powerful form, swallowing it and remaking it before her eyes. The tear itself revealed a light as red as fresh blood, the reddest thing she had ever seen in her life, and when it pulled her closer she watched it bloom with great inky whorls of black. 

 

The air was hot and full of static, each breath burning all the way down her throat as she sucked it in, and the last thing Jane saw before the tear swallowed her whole was great swaths of mould crawling up the faded wallpaper, the image warped and distorted through the rippling energy, and then nothing at all.

 

.

 

Jane didn’t remember waking up. She also didn’t remember falling asleep. One moment she was unconscious, and the next she was fully aware of herself, of her surroundings, as if she had only missed a moment as long as blink. But that couldn’t be possible, because she most certainly didn’t recall laying down, and she  _ definitely  _ would have made a note of doing so in some place like  _ this.  _

 

Propping her elbows up behind her, the change in weight shifting the silky black sand beneath her, Jane’s gaze scoured the world around her, cataloguing everything she could see. All around dunes of glittering black sand rose and fell, stretching far out into the distance to touch the crimson sky. There were no trees, no shrubbery, certainly no  _ Tennessee.  _ Just sand and sky and a hot breeze that ruffled her hair and stuck to her skin. 

 

Jane scrambled up onto her knees, her fingers digging into the hot sand like she might find some answers there. 

 

_ Okay, think, Jane. What happened? _

 

She remembered the drive, the GPS, the house… Jane bit her lip, suddenly furious with herself.  _ Oh, that’s right, you were a big fat idiot!  _

 

The house. The room. The tear. 

 

She’d walked right into some sort of curse that had done one of three equally terrible things: locked her in an illusion so real she had little hope of dismantling it from within, sucked her into a cursed object of some sort, perhaps a modified pensieve or worse,  _ or  _ she was genuinely transported somewhere for who knew what nefarious reason. There were a few options to pick from, but all of them led to the same conclusion: she was  _ royally  _ fucked.

 

Instinctively, Jane groped for her wand in the pocket of her jeans before she recalled that she had been holding it when the tear sucked her in. Panic seized her as her fingers met nothing but denim and sand. On hands and knees, she spun in a frantic circle, hands desperately sifting through black sand to find what amounted to an extension of herself and her magic. No part of her felt right without it at least nearby, not to mention the fact that without it she stood even less of a chance of escaping whatever trap she’d stepped in. 

 

After several minutes of frantic sifting, Jane was forced to admit that she was wandless. Perhaps she dropped it when she went through whatever it was she did, or maybe it took it from her. Either way she was defenseless. 

 

Her heart lodged itself somewhere deep in her throat as she sat back on her heels. It smarted to know that Darcy was right, that she should never have done this on her own. As it was, it would take months to find out she was missing in the first place, and since she had traveled by muggle means and not by apparation or portkey, it might take them even longer to track her down. 

 

Jane scrubbed at her eyes, the weight of her own foolishness pressing down on her even as her mind began to churn towards solutions. There was no one coming for her. She had clearly been  _ led  _ to this… whatever  _ this  _ was. She was wandless, but that didn’t mean she was powerless. She was a witch with  _ four _ masteries to her name. She was a cursebreaker, an astronomer, the daughter of a muggle scientist and a fucking  _ wizard. _ She would figure this out.

 

Breathing more deeply as the panic began to recede, Jane dropped her hands from her eyes and got to work. 

 

The first thing to do was eliminate possibilities. She had to know whether or not she was neck deep in an illusion or trapped within a cursed object. Once those two factors were confirmed or disproven, she could try other means of escaping a real, physical place. 

 

Scattered over the sand dunes here and there were small obsidian pebbles, perfect for testing. Jane clamboured to her feet and jogged over to the nearest one. It was hot, as if it had been left baking in the sunshine, and sat in the center of her palm like a polished river stone. It was beautiful, of course, and so Jane promptly chucked it straight up in the air.

 

It fell back down with a dull thump in the sand, confirming her grim suspicion. Physics appeared to work in more or less the same way as it did in the real world, and when she sucked in a deep breath, she smelled the sharp organic scent of volcanic ash and ozone. 

 

_ Gravity and scent.  _ Two things an illusion couldn’t accurately recreate, no matter what kind of wizard you were. There were almost always discrepancies with gravity, a lag or a slight heaviness, but scents were almost impossible to fake even within a cursed object.

 

_ So I’m not stuck in my own head, flat on my back in the house,  _ she thought, slowly making her way up the side of a dune,  _ and I’m not stuck in a cursed object. I’ve been transported somewhere. Shit. _

 

Standing at the crest of the dune, Jane surveyed her surroundings.  _ Dunes, dunes, dunes, as far as the eye can see.  _ Things weren’t quite so bad as they first appeared, then. She definitely preferred to be trapped somewhere real than in her own head. At least then she could try and apparate out of there. She had only tried wandless magic a few times, but that didn’t mean she was incapable of it. What was a little apparation anyway? Just squeezing herself into what amounted to a magical wormhole to spit herself out somewhere new. Hardly something to fret over.

 

_ Except… _

 

Jane stared up at the sky, a brilliant and uniform crimson, and wondered if it really was a good idea after all. It was one thing to apparate without a wand. It was entirely another to apparate without a wand from somewhere so alien. Wherever she was, it hardly felt like the world she was used to. Apparating thousands of miles was hugely ill-advised. Apparating through dimensions or over light-years? It had to be lethal.

 

So apparating was out, and she certainly didn’t have a handy-dandy portkey in her pocket. Jane turned in a slow circle, taking in the lay of the land. The obvious choice was to just start walking and hope that whatever brought her there, that force had been haunting her for months - because there was little doubt now that they were connected, if not one and the same - would show itself eventually. 

 

Her boots quickly filling up with sand, Jane picked a point on the horizon and trudged ahead. She couldn’t say how long she walked, and she certainly couldn’t tell anyone how  _ far  _ she went. After a while the landscape seemed to melt into itself, dunes repeating and the horizon never growing any closer. She thought hours must have passed, but the single star in the sky never lowered, the crimson light never changed. 

 

Just as she was beginning to seriously consider if she had misjudged whether or not she was stuck in an illusion, a strong breeze buffeted her back. It tossed fine grains of sand into her eyes in a way that felt distinctly purposeful and Jane cursed the damn place all the more for it.

 

Blinking away tears, Jane turned away from the wind, hiding her face until it died down again. She was  _ so  _ sick of sand. All she wanted was a massive jug of filtered water and to never see another grain of sand in her life.

 

When she dared raise her head again, Jane swiped at her cheeks and heaved herself up to the top of the dune, her legs aching with the strain of so much climbing. Standing at the crest of the great black wave, Jane stared out into the distance and blinked.

 

_ That  _ was not a dune.

 

Nor was it sand. No, rising up from a low valley ringed with dunes was a monolith of stone roughly the same height of a two story building. It hovered over a low platform, turning slowly in the air, the space between the stones perhaps a foot tall, and in the empty space a red, pulsing light radiated. 

 

Jane swallowed. In the back of her mind a switch flipped. She  _ knew  _ this place. She  _ knew  _ that rock and that light. She  _ knew  _ the feeling that came over her then, like some ancient thing was watching her, waiting for her to approach. 

 

Fear ran like ice through her veins, but she it didn’t even occur to her to pass up the opportunity to  _ know,  _ to finally understand what months of searching had finally brought her to. One knee bent into the sand, Jane slid down the steep dune and hiked down into the valley, a familiar whisper of a presence dripping like a leaky tap in the back of her mind.

 

The closer she got, the more weighty the presence became. It hung in the air all around her, filling her lungs and settling into her bones like the warmth of an out of control bonfire. The wail of magic, raw and untempered, scoured her soul for purchase, and like in the farmhouse, Jane recognized its age, its watchfulness. 

 

Before her, the stone monolith turned in a lazy way, its harsh angles at odds with the softness of the dunes all around, and when she approached it, the red light grew brighter, hotter, until it bathed her and the entire valley in its bloody color.

 

Transfixed, terrified, and unable to stop herself, Jane ascended the low stone dias and peered into the space under the floating monolith. An inky black mass writhed under the stone, undulating with great whorls of shadow that seemed to suck in light even as it radiated it. Jane found herself unable to look away, unable to retreat, even as her body recoiled from the sight of it. Whatever it was that had brought her there, whatever it was that called to her, it was too big for her to comprehend, too old and too hungry to do anything other than consume her. The very cells in her body trembled, as if even her most base elements knew that this place, this thing, was not meant to be seen with human eyes.

 

It was  _ old  _ magic.  _ Creation  _ magic. The kind that transcended light and dark, that defied the rules of transfiguration and morality. It lived, restless and powerful, in the heart of all magical beings, but was itself an entity left untamed by time or civilization. It was the kind of magic the ancient witches and wizards had tried to lock away in places like Stonehenge, to hide from future generations, to protect them, and it had sought  _ her _ out.

 

Jane never stood a chance.

 

Her hand raised, perhaps to push herself away from the burning magic, perhaps to reach for it, and the undulating mass of oily black energy shot out from between the stones to meet her. 

 

.

 

For the second time that day, Jane woke up without remembering how she fell asleep in the first place. The second time around, however, was a little more disorienting by virtue of the fact that she woke up falling. 

 

Although she recognized the pull of apparation immediately, Jane was absolutely positive she had never felt anything close to  _ this.  _ It was as if the hook behind her navel had somehow been tied to a fighter jet. She felt like she was hurtling through time and space at a speed that should have killed her right off the bat, but instead it simply folded her up into countless little squares, ripped her apart, only to piece her back together again, and then shot her out of a cannon and straight into someone’s living room. 

 

She came into being about two feet off of the ground and landed flat on her ass on a fine polished floor with an explosion of energy so powerful it blew out every window in the building. Jane, fighting every natural urge to be sick to her stomach all over the wood floor, braced one forearm against an overturned velvet ottoman and checked to make sure all of her pertinent pieces were where they should be.

 

They were, more or less, but she wasn’t sure about how many brain cells she’d lost.

 

Satisfied, Jane shook her head and tried to dispel the ringing in her ears. “Jesus,” she groaned, trying to leverage her weight onto the ottoman to get on her feet. It felt like she had inhaled a pound of sand on her way out, was a cruel parting shot from a deadbeat, no-good place that could take its red sky and its dunes and  _ shove it-  _

 

“I admit I was looking forward to running into you again, madam, but I didn’t imagine it would be in my own parlour.”

 

Jane’s head snapped up. There in a doorway half obscured by an overturned sette, was a familiar figure, but it took her an embarrassingly long time to place where she knew him from. Humiliatingly, it took her even longer to notice that he had a long, dark wand pointed directly at her head. 

 

“Oh, for  _ fuck’s  _ sake,” she muttered, cursing every higher being in the universe, but no more than that diabolical force that had dragged her through hell and then deposited her in the lap of the devil. 

 

The wizard’s black brows drifted upward a tick. “Quite. Care to explain why you’ve apparated into my parlour, madam?” He flicked his wand casually, moving the sette out of his way with a low screech of its heavy wood on the floor. “Or how  _ exactly _ you managed to break through my  _ extremely  _ extensive wards?”

 

Jane glared up at him through her long hair.  _ “I  _ didn’t do anything,” she protested, making to stand as he cautiously approached her. His long legs picked around the upturned furniture and shattered knicknacks, a painfully curious expression on his aristocratic face. His clothes were different from the last time she’d seen him, but that wasn’t all that surprising. The last time she met him, it was briefly, with significant annoyance, and in the most hauntingly unorganized shop in all of magical New York. 

 

It was also the day before her life went to shit.

 

“Really? Because it looks like you’re the one sitting in my demolished living space.”

 

Standing wasn’t going so well. The bones in her legs felt as though they were rendered into jello. She cursed again, the ottoman swaying on its side worryingly as she sank back down onto her knees. “If I could have picked any place to land, why in the  _ world  _ would I choose a stranger’s house?”

 

“Why, indeed.” The wizard crouched in front of her, elbows on his knees, and delicately tapped the underside of her chin with the tip of his wand. He watched her eyes widen, but was pleased to see she didn’t flinch. He smiled, slow and wide. “You know, I just realized you never gave me your name.”

 

Jane’s eyes settled on the hand holding the wand against the delicate skin of her jaw. A gaudy silver ring with an emerald stone glittered on the ring finger of his right hand.  _ Ah, that’s right.  _ She’d almost forgotten that this infuriating man was probably a dark wizard.  _ Master Laufeyson,  _ the shopkeeper called him. A man who had shady shopkeepers bow to him as they presented him with his orders. A man who thought he could shush her with a single upraised finger. A man capable of forging his  _ own _ magical jewellry. 

 

It made her wonder why he bothered using the wand at all. He probably didn’t need it. 

 

“Jane,” she answered, reflexive. She didn’t have time to bicker. She also didn’t have time to contemplate him or anything else. Jane swallowed and eased her head back, trying to put some distance between herself and the tip of his wand. “I would put that away, if I were you.”

 

His eyebrows arched higher. “I think I’m perfectly within my rights to have my wand out,  _ Jane.” _

 

“I understand that.” Jane could feel the foreign energy of the Aether stirring under her skin, still hot and freshly melded to her own magical core. It snapped to attention within her, bucking against the restraints of her flesh, and she  _ really  _ didn’t want to give it any excuse to come out. It was old and unused, ready to stretch its legs in the real world again. 

She hadn’t known the Aether very long, had only just become  _ intimately  _ acquainted with it, but she knew that if the wizard dared to make a move toward her, it would be all the excuse it needed to unleash itself from her like a tsunami.

 

Jane gulped in a breath and scuttled backwards, nearly planting herself in the hearth. “I really,  _ really  _ do. I crashed your house. Sorry about that. Really. But you need to back off  _ right now.” _

 

He canted his dark head at her, his black hair curling sweetly behind his ears, and slowly drew the tip of his wand along her the line of her jaw. It buzzed against her skin, his magic questing, seeking out hers with fluttering curiosity. Jane yanked herself backward, heart pounding as she stumbled onto her ass just a foot from his immaculate fireplace. 

 

“Seriously,” she pleaded,  _ “don’t  _ make a move that looks even a little threatening. I don’t know what will happen.”

 

He sat back on the heels of his polished dragonhide boots, those eyes tracing every line of her like he might unravel her mysteries with his gaze alone. Slowly, he lowered his wand. It dangled from the tips of his fingers, ready should he need it. “You look markedly unwell, Jane.”

 

“I’ve had a  _ really  _ bad day.”

 

“Really? Did  _ you  _ have your parlour destroyed too?”

 

Jane shook her head. “Look, I said I was sorry already. It was an acci-”

 

She only had a second to understand his intentions, just long enough to throw up a hand in warning but not enough to stop him before he cast a quick and nasty binding hex. It hit her skin and then the room exploded. 

 

Master Laufeyson flew back, a hastily erected shield saving him from more catastrophic injuries as white-hot energy burst out of the little witch like a bomb. He landed on the opposite side of the room, the wind knocked out of his lungs and the wood floor splintering beneath him. 

 

By the fireplace, Jane lurched to her feet and stumbled over to him, black sand leaking out of her boots. “God, I’m so- I  _ really didn’t  _ mean to do that! If you had just  _ listened-”  _ She knelt by his side, praying that he was still alive.  _ “Please  _ don’t be dead. I can’t deal with that today.”

 

He coughed twice and made to stand, his once pristine button-down smeared with dust and his black hair askew. Arm snapping out to find his wand, he glared at her with enough ferocity to have the Aether stirring again. His aristocratic face twisted in a snarl, he bit out, “Just what in the  _ hell  _ was that?”

 

Jane recoiled, afraid to help him. Leaping unsteadily to her feet, she licked her lips and eyed the doorway. It would probably be for the best if she just got herself as far from other people as physically possible.

 

“I’m really sorry about all this,” she told him. She meant it, too. Whoever he was, he probably didn’t deserve to have her destroy his house, only to promptly send him through his floor. “Really, really sorry, actually. But I have to go.”

 

He reached for her, one long-fingered hand nearly closing on her slim ankle, but she danced out of his reach. Dodging the destruction she made, Jane burst out of the parlour and skidded down a hall, eyes darting in every direction as she hunted for the exit. She could hear him behind her, a series of very British curses drawing ever closer as he thundered down the hall in pursuit, but after two left turns, Jane found the door.

 

Her boots slipping on the polished marble of a decadent foyer, Jane heaved open the heavy wooden door and flew down the cobbled steps. He was right behind her, of course. Those long legs could eat up distances that she could hardly dream of. Master Laufeyson, leaping down the last few steps just as she reached the bottom, snagged her upper arm, heedless of what doing so might trigger. He stopped her cold, but it turned out to be unnecessary. 

 

Jane stumbled to a stop, mouth agape. She  _ knew  _ this street. A year’s long - miserable, miserable,  _ miserable - _ residency and one too many fancy cocktail parties in the neighborhood made her far more familiar with the place than she would have liked.

 

“Oh, for  _ fuck’s  _ sake,” she exclaimed for the second time that day, nearly stamping her foot in frustration. “London,  _ really?!” _

 

The wizard swung her around to face him, cheeks flushed and teeth bared in a snarl. He looked as though he were but seconds from eating her. “Are you  _ quite  _ finished?”

 

Jane tried to shake his hand off, but apparently the Aether didn’t much mind if he manhandled her.  _ Damn finicky thing.  _ “Didn’t you learn anything last time? It’s  _ really  _ not a good idea to threaten me.” 

 

He leaned in close, nostrils flaring, and stared into her eyes. When she tried to lean away, he merely drew her closer until their breath mingled in the air between them. “You burst into  _ my  _ home, destroy  _ my  _ parlour, refuse to answer any questions,  _ blow up,  _ and then expect me to just let you go? I want to know how and why you got through my wards. I want to know just  _ who  _ the hell you are. Did Odin send you?”

 

“Who the hell is Odin? And no! I  _ told _ you it was an accident,” she protested, as if she wouldn’t have been equally disconcerted if someone had gotten through her complex webs of spellwork to damn near level her house. “I didn’t have a choice. Someone else picked my destination and dropped me here.  _ Obviously.” _

 

His jaw ticked. “How is any of that obvious?” 

 

“You think I would pick  _ London  _ as a landing spot?” Jane might have laughed in his face if she weren’t so mind-numbingly frustrated and still very sandy. “I hate this city. More than that, it’s about two thousand miles off where I should be.”

 

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Just  _ how bad  _ was your portkey?”

 

That time she really did laugh. “You have no idea. And even if I thought it was a good idea to explain it, you wouldn’t understand.”

 

His dark brows lowered, the wizard offered her a look of such intensity that it nearly took her breath away.  _ “Try me.” _

 

Jane stared up into his face, taking in the aquiline features and furrowed brow, and wondered who it was the Aether had sent her flying into. There was a hungry look in his eyes, like he wished to drain her of every last drop of information, as if he might wring her secrets from her and hoard them deep within himself. It was one of the most disquieting looks she had ever been on the receiving end of, she decided. 

 

Snidely, because she was at the very tail end of what her nerves could take, Jane asked, “Oh really? Have  _ you  _ ever been sucked through a wormhole into another dimension and been possessed by a magical entity so old it has its own name?”

 

His lips parted, but no sound came out. The hungry look flared hotter, threatening to scorch her, and for a long time it felt as though the air between them could catch fire at any moment. Jane held her breath, the Aether stirring in her blood, buzzing just beneath the skin where he held her arm. It didn’t feel threatened, as much as Jane’s logical mind wished to point out how scary  _ she  _ thought he was, but rather exhilarated. Energized. Like it knew something she didn’t.

 

Finally, he licked his lips and murmured, “In fact, I’m probably the only other person in the world that can say that I have.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd I had to split this into two parts. It got too damn long. Keep an eye out for the second half!


End file.
